The Crow - A Novelization
by Eric VanDerBoom
Summary: As the fires of Devil's Night burn through the inner city, a rock guitarist and his beautiful fiancé are found dead, murdered by a horrible gang. One year later, the rocker comes back, reborn as a vengeful spirit out to destroy the people responsible. Dedicated to Brandon Lee.
1. Part 1: Pain

**Part 1 - Pain**

 _People once believed that, when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right._

* * *

Devil's Night. October 30th.

He could smell the fires burning from here, the restless blazes taking down nearby buildings only blocks away, as if the fires had come straight from Hell itself. Yet even those seemed to be nothing compared to the scene Sergeant Daryl Albrecht was standing in right now.  
He was quickly approaching middle age, his short hair and trimmed mustache a shade darker than his skin, and his form that of a well-exercised man gone slightly to seed. Beneath the dark blues of his police uniform, which made him looked authoritative and relaxed, he was sweating. That perspiration had nothing to do with the hundred-plus fires that were spreading quickly across the inner city, however. Instead, it all had to do with the horrible scene unfolding all around him.

Nervously taking quick drags of his cigarette, he looked down upon the scene unfolding six stories below where he stood, merely an extension of what was going on behind him – a young man dead on the ground as curious bystanders gathered around the man's body, even while paramedics covered the body up before taking it away. Turning back to the loft apartment, Albrecht couldn't help but take everything in here as well. Cops were dusting for fingerprints on whatever they could find among the mess the once-beautiful and spacious apartment now was, more cops starting to cradle a woman, her form and face bloody and bruised and only barely managing to breathe steadily.  
Among the flotsam and jetsam of destroyed furniture, Albrecht came across one of the only things that survived relatively unscathed: a wedding invitation on engraved white paper for the two people that had suffered through this horrific scene.

"Hey, Sarge?"  
"Yeah", Albrecht answered, turning to the beat cop that had called for him as said cop pointed to a beautiful, ivory wedding dress that cloaked a dressmaker's mannequin. "Shelly Webster and Eric Draven. Their wedding was tomorrow night."  
"Who the fuck gets married on Halloween anyhow?"  
"Nobody", Albrecht stated regretfully, focusing his attention to the woman – Shelly – as she was being lifted onto a stretcher, an oxygen mask being fitted onto her as two more cops looked on in fear. One of them, a pale young man, looked up at Albrecht to say, "Sir, we've gotta move her."

With a nod, and knowing he'd have to face hell for it later, Albrecht simply stated, "Do it." At his words, the paramedics lifted the stretcher on which Shelly laid and slowly escorted it downstairs to the ambulance.  
"Devil's fuckin' Night", Albrecht heard one of the officers mutter. "What's the count so far?"  
"143 fires", he answered begrudgingly.  
"They're slackin' off from last year."  
"Well, only three hours to go; they're probably just slow starters." Even as he said these words, Albrecht knew that it wouldn't take long for the gang responsible for these blazes to make up for their lost time. It seemed everyone in the inner city knew who they were, what they were notorious for.

Tin Tin, for his affinity with knives.  
Funboy, from his addictions to sex and drugs.  
T-Bird, the main ringleader who always drove the car his nickname came from.  
And Skank, T-Bird's friend who looked as though he'd suffered the worst from all the drugs Albrecht was sure he'd gotten into.

As horrible as they were, Albrecht knew that simply dwelling on what they had done would get no one anywhere fast right now. Following the stretcher downstairs and outside, his want to see Shelly be relatively safe became swept to the side when he heard his supervising detective, a perpetually angered rat-faced man in a trenchcoat and suit just out on the street.  
"…weren't supposed to move her yet. There are rules for this sort of thing!" Finally the man, Detective Ark Torres, noticed Albrecht standing by the head of the stretcher. "This the victim?"  
"No, Detective, it's Amelia Earhart. We found her and you missed it", Albrecht fired back, very much annoyed. Ever since they had first been put together, Torres and Albrecht had not gotten along in any sense – where Albrecht not only wanted to do his job, but live and work by the moral code that came with it, Torres only wanted to do what would turn out best for him, and either refused to see what was past his short sight or simply didn't want to know. It was because of that moral conscience that he applied to his job that Albrecht had been demoted back to being a beat cop just a few weeks prior.  
"I don't give a good goddamn what her name is! You should've waited for my orders, Albrecht. I can see why they took away your gold badge", he finished, referencing the recent demotion.  
"Yeah, because I wasn't a big enough asshole", Albrecht sarcastically responded before turning back to Shelly, just as he noticed a blond teenage girl dressed in dark skater's clothing – t-shirt, red jacket, dark jacket, and black boots – glide up to the scene on her skateboard. "Come on, guys, let's go", he told the medics.

"Shelly?" The girl's voice was only mildly shaky with fear and sadness at the scene. Even as he told her to keep back, Albrecht made no effort to stop her past that.  
"Where's Eric?" A hoarse, once-musical voice emanated from just behind the hanging oxygen mask covering the beaten woman's face.  
"Just don't worry about him."

But Albrecht's attempt at calm gave no pause for Shelly, her hoarse voice rasping out as Albrecht removed the mask for a brief moment to hear her more clearly. "Tell him to take care of Sarah", she requested of Albrecht.  
He looked back to the blond teenager standing next to him, even as the medics placed the oxygen mask back on Shelly's face. "I will, don't worry." Then, as they loaded Shelly into the back of the ambulance and strapped the oxygen mask back onto her face., Albrecht turned to the young blond. "You Sarah?"  
"Yeah", she responded, silent tears beginning to flow down her young face and onto her dark hoodie.

Doing his best to keep himself under control, Albrecht reassured her, "Listen, your sister…she's going to be fine.  
"She's not my sister", Sarah corrected. "Shelly just takes care of me…her and Eric." Her gaze flickered down from the cracked pavement and up into Albrecht's dark face.

"You lied to her about Eric." There was no questioning in her voice.  
"I had to", Albrecht finally stated.  
"And you're lying to me about Shelly", Sarah stated, the sadness creating a slight crack in her voice. "She's going to die, isn't she?"  
As much as he wanted to reassure Sarah that everything was going to be fine with Shelly and Eric, Albrecht knew he couldn't lie to her any more than he had already tried. Eric Draven being dead was a no-brainer – he'd taken a knife to the chest, three each of .45 and 9mm rounds around his heart, and a toss out of the sixth story window of his loft. And Shelly….  
"Hey…it's ok", Albrecht finally managed to get out, patting Sarah's shoulders in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "Everything's going to be fine."

* * *

But Albrecht found out the hard way that even that was a lie.

The staff working at Inner City Hospital already had their hands full with other victims of the Devil's Night devastation, but somehow they were able to find room for Shelly. As Albrecht waited testily for news on her condition, he still managed to pay attention to the many doctors, nurses, and orderlies rushing about to their respective areas of call.  
For what seemed like the thousandth time, he looked through the double bulletproof glass that separated the intensive care unit from the main part of the building. Albrecht couldn't see much of Shelly over the shroud that covered her body and the doctors and nurses that rushed about her in their attempts to keep her alive, but he knew that whatever happened, they were trying their best. All he could do was follow their lead and wait.  
The sounds of the hospital – intercom signals, calls from nurses and doctors across halls, gurney wheels clattering – blurred in and out of his slowly diminishing attention span, but Albrecht kept forcing himself to stay conscious of his environment – part out of his police training, but mostly out of wanting to hear any news of Shelly.

He got it, all right.

"Officer?" A skinny, blond haired man approached Albrecht, his mild face betraying the regret he must've been feeling inside. Even as he asked, Albrecht was sure he already knew the answer.  
"How's she doing?"  
"They've been trying to revive her for the last thirty hours. She's suffered some pretty severe injuries – concussion, lacerations all across her body, heavy bruising and bleeding. We tried everything we could – blood transfusions, IV, AED—"  
"Just get to the point, kid. Is she going to be ok?"  
At this, the kid looked down at the floor as if a weight had slowly been attached to his head. "I'm afraid not. No matter what we did, she never fully came around. And just now…she finally just gave it up. There was nothing else we could've done. She's dead."

She's dead.

Dead.

At first, the words had no meaning for Albrecht. Shelly Webster, a beautiful young woman with a heart as big as all outdoors, a photographer with a great eye for the world's natural beauty; and her rock star boyfriend with an easy smile and warmer temper to match, were actually gone from this earth only because she had wanted to stand up for the rest of the people living in the building they did…  
It was unthinkable, if only to him. Even now, Albrecht was half-expecting Shelly to limp out of the room, trying to manage her bright white smile. It was hard to accept that he'd never see that smile again. He'd never hear the booming drums or wailing guitars of Eric's band again. Nor would he ever hear his warm gravelly voice that, although well fitting of his band's music, sounded like it should've belonged in a chorus hall.  
At that point, Albrecht's mind focused on only one thing – a line from one of Eric's songs. It seemed so ironic and untrue now.

 _It can't rain all the time._

Yet Albrecht had no idea just how right that quote would prove to be in just one short, succeeding year.


	2. Part 2-1: Fear-Rem & Resurrection

Part 2.1 - Fear: Remembrance and Resurrection

 **ONE YEAR LATER**

 _A building gets torched, and all that is left is ashes. I used to think that was true about everything: families, friends, feelings. But now I know, sometimes, if love proves real for two people who are meant to be together, nothing can keep them apart._

* * *

Gently, Sarah set the bouquet of flowers down against the headstone of Shelly Webster, having walked to her grave and stopping to take a flower from each grave Sarah had passed to make her makeshift bouquet.  
Then she took one more step forward to Eric's, setting down a single white rose on his grave. All the short time she'd known Eric and Shelly, Sarah had noticed that Eric had a morbid fascination with death, seeming to have fun with even the concept of it. Even his band's name, Hangman's Joke, seemed to be laughing in Death's face. Yet, all of those facets of his personality only made Eric seem cooler in Sarah's eyes.

The fact that Eric never seemed afraid of death, even in a city that was so full of it, also gave Sarah a small degree of comfort. And she remembered that Eric said he only wanted one white rose on his grave if he should ever die, no matter how.  
Her respects paid, Sarah rose to her feet, taking one last fond look at the graves of the two people who were more family than her mom. "Later", she said as she started walking away.  
Just as she reached the cemetery gates, the cloudy overcast opened up to let out a heavy rainfall, but even that didn't bother Sarah. It rained pretty often in Detroit lately.

It didn't seem to bother the bird, either – a large, black crow that flew directly over Sarah's head and caught her attention as it landed on Eric's grave. Yet, the crow seemed fully concentrated on Eric's grave in a very unnatural way. A derisive caw echoed from its beak, unsettling Sarah further.  
"What are you, like the night watchman?"  
The smart remark earned her a sharper, almost rude caw from the monstrous bird's beak, and Sarah firmly decided that that was enough for one day. Turning away, she kicked against the pavement as she mounted her skateboard, the wheels surfing over the rapidly-flooding streets, a car honking as it drove and turned just behind her.  
But if Sarah had been paying attention for just a second longer, she would've seen something very unnatural indeed – the crow, almost knocking on Eric's gravestone with the tip of its beak, as if expecting him to answer.

* * *

"You know that Lake Erie caught fire once from all the crap floating around in it?" Smoke billowed from T-Bird's mouth as he lifted the cigarette away from it, letting out a chuckle at how well his story seemed to line up with tonight. "I wish I could've seen that." He let out a loud whistle, after which the real noise began.  
With wild whoops and abandon-filled shouts, his gang took bats and fists to the vintage arcade game cabinets that lined almost every wall of the first floor of the building. Yet T-Bird barely paid any attention to the noise as he hunched over a set of C4, setting the connected fuse to detonate in just less than five minutes.

It was a bit of a shame – as a kid, T-Bird used to be all over games like this. But when your first job of murder hits, everything else seems to fly out the window, especially if you were working for someone like the boss. T-Bird had to admire his scheme – with the boss owning every building within the inner city, he didn't take kindly to people complaining about the conditions of housing when they were under his willful insurance. If they didn't clam up, he rescinded on the insurance and it was up to T-Bird to collect the bill with added expenses.  
"Yo, T!" A cry from one of T-Bird's pals, the junkie named Funboy, rang out amidst the chaos, and T-Bird could see he'd found an audience member for their show of destruction – a young, pretty-faced dark-skinned woman. Not quite the best body by his standards, but T-Bird could predict they'd have some fun with her.  
"What do we do with her?" Funboy asked, an evil smirk on his face.  
"Simple, boys – we take her for a little drive", T-Bird answered with a theatrical sweep of his arms. With the bomb set and the last of the games destroyed, the gang took the captured woman outside with them to their escape, the car after which T-Bird got his name.

T-Bird had to admit though, collecting on those expenses – especially on a night like tonight – was damned fun. As he joined the rest of his gang back at his car, screams of "Fire it up! Fire it up!" echoing off the dark walls of the surrounding buildings, they piled into the car and readied it, speeding away as T-Bird stomped down on the throttle.  
This night couldn't get any better for them. Or so they thought.

* * *

That night found Officer Albrecht sitting outside his favorite hot dog stand in town, having to put up with the owner nearly screwing up how he liked his dog while the owner soliloquized as if he were Shakespeare, bouncy jazz music playing beneath his monologue.  
"You know, what this town really needs is a good natural disaster. Earthquake, tornado…"  
"Come on, Mick, you've gotta put the mustard on underneath first!"  
"Maybe a flood, like in the Bible", Mickey finished, barely paying any attention to Albrecht as he finished up and handed him his dog.  
"There we go. Alright, how about some onions?" Albrecht asked, to which Mickey put on a light spoonful of onions – not enough. "Nah, come on, man! Lots of onions!"

The delightful reverie was broken up by the sound of heavy-duty skateboard wheels clattering over rocky pavement before the board was replaced by two teenaged feet, which Mickey was quick to notice even as the owner of said board came up to the counter. "Hey, it's the Sarah monster!"  
Letting out a chuckle at that greeting, Albrecht turned to Sarah and gave her a friendly nudge, his tone one of being mildly impressed. "How do you steer that thing on a wet street?"  
"Pure talent", Sarah answered back with a roll of her eyes before saying hello to Mickey.  
"See, now Sarah, she's a genuine hot-dogger", Albrecht commented proudly. "You hungry?"  
"You buyin'?"

"I'm buyin'", he answered. It had been like this ever since that fateful night - one of the brighter spots that resulted from then. Sarah's mom had been diving in deeper with her boyfriend, Funboy, ever since that day. At this point, she wasn't sure about Funboy – in fact, Sarah hated him, if only because she was positive that he was one of the people responsible for offing Eric and Shelly. But she definitely hated him because she'd taken her mom and left an empty shell in her place. Sarah didn't even think of her as her mom anymore, just Darla. Next to Eric and Shelly, Sarah had Albrecht as the closest thing to a family for her.

Still, at the very least, she knew someone was looking out for her, especially one of the better police officers.

"No onions though, ok?" she asked.  
"No onions?" Officer Albrecht repeated, as though not believing what he heard.  
"They make ya fart, big time", Sarah replied. Now it was Mickey's turn to let out a chuckle. In what seemed like no time at all, she was already eating, the first bites out of her hot dog slowly disappearing with her root beer.  
"So, Sarah, where've you been? You're usually here earlier than this", Mickey asked.  
"I went to see a friend", Sarah answered, turning to look at Albrecht again with a more somber expression. He didn't need any explanation; he already understood.  
"And how's your friend?"  
"Still dead", she answered sadly. Her head gazed down to a small spot of dirt on the counter as the memories of her with Eric and Shelly began to catch up with her.

She didn't pay much attention the screeching of wheels and thrumming of a souped-up motor either until Albrecht pointed the slowing car out, an old '73 Thunderbird with neon lights running along the lower outside. "Lot of bad people out on the street tonight", Albrecht stated, and Sarah couldn't help but agree.

But she didn't need the gigantic thundering explosion of a nearby building to have the point horribly driven home to her, her head jerking to see exactly where the explosion was coming from.  
"Goddammit", Albrecht cried out, his hand moving to the holster at his hip as Mickey's hand moved to the phone beneath the counter. "You want me to call it in, Daryl?"  
"Yeah, do it", Albrecht called back over his shoulder. Then to Sarah, "Stay right there, I'll be back!"  
"Be careful!" Sarah called back, watching as he disappeared around the corner toward that explosion.

* * *

At around that same time, a different explosion of sorts was taking place across a short stretch of town.  
The crow, still perched on Eric Draven's gravestone, seemed to watch the ground beneath it with deep intent. Once, twice, the crow pecked at the top of the gravestone, the last sending a shard of the granite flying away.

Then, ever so slowly, a trickle of blood began to flow upward from the place where the shard had come from, tantalizingly flowing down the front of the stone and into the engraved letters of the Draven name. The trickle increased only slightly, the name following suit as it filled in with the dripping blood. Above the trickle, the murderous bird stood perched, waiting.

What the bird exerted its effort for, it seemed to pay off right then and there – the ground began to bulge up and outward violently before it slowly rose up and away from the tombstone, an old and rather molded casket lid following suit. The crow let out a caw that rang through the grounds as something emerged from the new hole in the ground – two hands, then a hunched back topped with long, wavy dark hair and clad in an old black suit. The human form slowly, almost painfully, tugged and pulled his way out from the hole, raspy whimpers and groans emanating from his mouth, the suit jacket tearing up the back as he finished his short climb up from the casket that had imprisoned him.  
Finally a surge of energy flooded his senses, his blood, every fiber of his soul, and as the crow called out even louder than before, the man let out a tortured, frightened scream as his mind finally caught up with the rest of him. The man had no idea how he even did what he did, why he was there.

One year ago, that man had been freshly stabbed, shot, and thrown out of a sixth-story window.

One year ago, Eric Draven was dead.

Now, his tall and muscular form reared up and spread his arms wide, dark hazel eyes taking in the sight of his environment – the heavy rain falling around him, the other graves standing guard around his, the deathly black bird taking a new perch on a low-hanging branch just beside him. Shuddering, he kept his eyes locked on the crow as it nudged its head to one side, away from the cemetery. Then, just as suddenly as it came, it flew away in that direction, leaving a further bewildered Eric behind. Drudgingly, he started to follow after the bird, his bare feet squelching into the thickening mud of the cemetery before clearing away against the rocky pavement of the streets.

 _Just follow me, kid; you'll be all right._

Shaking his head to clear it away, Eric would've thought he were going crazy from the night's events – raised from the dead and listening to a telepathic winged creature, that was something no one in their right mind-

 _You aren't in your right mind anymore, Draven. You were brought back for a reason. That's why I'm here – so you don't get steered back too straight. Or too wrong._

Now Eric was completely lost – so lost in what he hoped was still his head that he didn't notice the bleeding, bruised, feminine form waiting for him until she grabbed by his torn lapels.  
"Please…please help me…!"  
Eric lifted his shuddering arms up to her shoulders to try to calm her down, push her away, something, but he didn't expect what came next.

 **Two scraggly men, their faces blurred as if through a stained-glass window, their voices scratchy. One voice, well toned but almost as scratchy as sandpaper, the other muddled and gruff.  
"Skank, shut her the fuck up!"  
A slap, and the woman's cries of terror all but ceased.  
"Change of plans, fellas – get her out of here!" A car engine slowing to an idle, a door opening, and a body collapsing. The car speeding away, whoops and hollers emanating through its windows.**

The flash seemed to sap into Eric's entire being, and as the woman slowly dropped to the pavement, his own hands came to cup his head, barely able to handle the flash of memory that wasn't his to begin with. He managed to speed up his pace only a notch, but he figured that dealing with only one strange facet at a time would be enough for him. He felt safer with the bird, as crazy as that sounded.  
His torn jacket and shirt kept getting tangled across his body, seeming to tear with the rain that flooded through them, and he tore the garments off to leave his toned torso free against the harsh weather.  
What he didn't seem to notice in his hurry was that all evidence of pain had left the woman. She was no longer troubled, on a smooth course toward a peaceful death. No fault of Eric's.  
Up ahead, a ladder stood mounted against the outside wall of a derelict building. It had only been that way for a year, yet Eric could still recognize even the back face of it any day. This had been the place where he lived.

 _CAW!_

He turned to face the crow, mounted on the lip of an overflowing dumpster next to a relatively clean-looking pair of well-worn black combat boots, the loosened laces seeming to wait for him. Eric reached up to the boots slowly, hoping they weren't just an illusion as crazy as anything else that had happened tonight. Thankfully, they proved to be real enough, and on Eric's feet the boots went.  
Then he turned his attention back to the ladder. It may have been to high for him to reach from the ground, so there was only one thing to do.  
He jumped. But he hadn't expected to reach the third rung up the ladder when it was ten feet up from the ground, farther than anyone had the ability to jump. Eric clung to the ladder, frightened for his newfound life-

 _I wouldn't go quite that far, kid. You may be alive again, but what you're about to do won't make for a life worth living. Then again, this is for love, and what does anyone know for sure when it comes to that?_

More cryptic hints and tips from his apparently psychic pet bird. More than eager for some straight answers for this night, Eric resumed his climb up the ladder, taking each rung in his own slow and steady stride, fearful he might slip and fall away from the cold iron. Even without that difficulty, each rung felt more hard-earned than the last, as if he were an undeserving hellion climbing his way out of the pit.

At last, Eric reached the top of the building, making his way toward the door that led down inside the building's highest story. With a creak, the door slowly swung open, seeming to invite and threaten him at the same time. He bestowed his courtesy on the former feeling and let his boot-clad feet carry him forward, windswept debris crackling and breaking beneath them. Peeking around the corner of the ruined hallway, he saw a few strips of faded police tape stretched across a nearby door – a very familiar door.

He'd have known that cutesy skeleton decoration anywhere.

Shelly…

Before he could consciously resist, Eric tore away the police tape and threw open the door of the loft that was once his, rainwater dripping down his back after previously collecting from a flooding ceiling above. The loft itself was still rather trashed, miscellaneous items and garbage decorating a few places in the room, a ladies' vanity and matching backless chair taking up a spot near one of the metal support beams that separated the two halves of the room. Other than Shelly's dilapidated vanity– the only solid remaining trace that anyone had lived there - the place was nearly void of all furniture. The stone fireplace in the opposite wall stood ominously, a fluffy white form slowly making its way toward Eric and letting out a soft mewl.  
"Gabriel…?" Eric's inquiry quietly left his lips, and he bent down to pick up the cat that he and Sherry had got the day after their engagement. But, yet again—

 **Gabriel screeching with surprise and anger after the man, as ragged as his voice was muddy, dropped him to the ground to suck the blood from a would on his finger, courtesy of the same cat he'd dropped.**

Eric's hands went to his temples again to soothe the headache that came with the memory flash. He felt as much as heard the crow fly past his shoulder to mount in one of the exposed ceiling beams, watching him.

 _Nuh-uh, you ain't done with these yet, kid. You need to know what happened to you and yours._

Once they started, they couldn't stop, and Eric felt his brain become flooded with memories.

 **A carved pumpkin exploding on the ground as it hit, the woman holding it turning to the door. Knock knock knock.  
"Eric?" The woman reaching for the door before it was slammed outwards towards her, she retreating before a group of gang members, their leader holding a text-crammed piece of paper.  
"Department of Housing! Did you send up these complaints?"  
The four men jumping her, holding her down on the ground, one of them clamping one of his hands over her mouth to prevent her screaming as one of them stood back up and looked around.  
One of them speaking, a man with soaked dark hair with a goatee and sideburns to match. "Code violations? Safety hazards? Place looks fine to me! …Let's redecorate!" The man picking her up by her hair, forcefully throwing her to the ground near her bed as he rifled through a nearby book, his comrades turning things over, throwing others, kicking furniture away.**

Eric stumbled drunkenly across the worn wooden floor of the loft, his hard head colliding with the glass left in the bathroom door, his long dark locks flowing against the shards before he lifted himself away.

 **"Abash, the devil stood, and felt how awful goodness is, saw virtue in her shape, how lovely. Ha!" The leader looking at her, as if he'd just told a joke she was supposed to understand, an antique copy of 'Paradise Lost' held open in his hands. "It's pornography! Virtue!?"  
One of his comrades coming over to him, helping her tear her dark dress away, full breasts protected by a simple black bra, heaving as she screamed for the two interlopers to stop, the other two realizing what was happening before coming over themselves. The first of them, a dark skinned man with dreadlocks and knives in his hands, managing to get a grip on her first.  
"No no no, me first." This one a man, scraggly blond hair and scruffy face, his shirt lifting to reveal a tattooed gun pointing upwards from his abs. Pushing the dark man out of the way and getting on top of her, not letting her move even an inch as he violated her.  
A flash, and he was replaced by the man who'd tried to go first, his skin and hair dark, a knife held aloft in his hand as he took his friend's place.  
The door being pushed back open by the loft's other paying resident. "Shelly!?"  
The dark man looking over at him with obvious disdain and impatience, his hand flinging the knife into Eric's chest, bringing him to his knees. "See ya!"**

Eric could almost feel the cold metal of the blade again, and he collapsed against the floor, knowing that in his huddled form, he was even lying in the same place where he'd collapsed before.

 **"Please…" The knife slowly being pulled out, pain enveloping his every nerve as he reached out to the woman the four men were unjustly ravaging for their own sick pleasure. "Shelly…"  
"Eric!" Her cry drowning in fear, sadness, and pain.**

Suddenly Eric looked down to notice the scars of bullet holes dotted around the center of his chest. He felt himself being pulled to his feet, his arms held aloft before he was then forced back to his knees, seeing-

 **The receiving ends of two gun barrels, a .357 Magnum and a Beretta M9, their muzzles flashing as the bullets buried themselves into his body, courtesy of their owners, the leader and the scraggly blond.  
T-Bird. Funboy.**

Their names rattled through Eric's head with the impacts of the gunshots he was being mentally forced to relive, and he felt himself forced to his feet again, shoved over to the window and tossed out of it.

 **His body, the face awash with pain and death, hitting the pavement with enough force to break it upon impact, the distant faces of the four gang members the last things that he saw.**

Except this time, he could feel his hands being cut into by the glass shards left in the window frame, his feet hanging above his body as he vaulted himself upside-down, hanging parallel to the rising edifice. Then Eric brought the momentum in his body forward and around, catapulting himself back through the window and into the loft, landing in a crouch. He looked at his hands, the palms bleeding across the cuts he received from the glass.

Only the blood didn't seem to be flooding across his hands anymore – on the contrary, it seemed to be _flowing back into the wounds_ right before they closed up as if they were never there in the first place.

What had happened to him!?

* * *

Slowly, ever so slowly, he made his way over to the vanity on the other side of the room, sitting down on the soft backless chair, his gaze never leaving his hands. He could feel more flashes of memories about to hit him, these ones seeming warmer and softer than the last. Eric slowly dropped his head into his hands, propping them against the vanity, his gaze catching sight of his old favorite Greek Irony mask. He reached out to touch it, his fingers grazing over the porcelain surface…

 **"Boo." His voice softly emanating from behind the mask he held in front of his face. Shelly's soft chuckle as she awoke from her nap, followed by her sweet voice. "Your scary quotient needs work, big guy." The two of them chuckling merrily.**

Eric's hand went to the top right drawer of the vanity, expecting it to be as empty as the rest of the loft. What he found instead were pictures he never thought he'd see again – him and Shelly, getting the keys to their new loft, after one of his concerts, her bright open smile…

 **Shelly holding Eric close as they lay on the couch, his fingers lightly spidering over her smooth shoulder as they held each other. Her voice – "I love you."  
His reply of "Say that again."  
"I love you." Her voice sweeter than ever.**

 **Another memory - "Oh, boy!" Shelly's exclamation ringing out before Eric practically stumbled in, grabbing a lit and setting it on the flaming pot, turning off the stove. His chuckle, protectively hugging Shelly. "It's alright, baby. No worries." Their eyes locking as he took her around her shoulders with another laugh. "Restaurant."**

Digging deeper into the drawer, Eric also managed to find an old bridal magazine – the same one that Shelly ordered her wedding dress from shortly after they made their engagement official. All he could think of the first time he saw her in it was how lucky he was to be spending the rest of his life with her.  
Eric looked through the magazine, slowly leafing through it until he found the page bearing a picture of the same dress he'd caught Shelly in.

 **Sarah's voice as she admired Shelly from her spot on the bed. "Wow, you look great!" Stopping to smell the roses as Shelly twirled in her bridal gown with a "Ta-da!" before picking up Gabriel.  
Another memory – Sarah and Shelly dressed normally, bolting into the bedroom before playfully smacking each other with pillows.  
Eric chasing her into that same place much later after Sarah had left, a can of whipped cream in his hands as he sprayed it onto her, holding her from behind. Shelly's laughter-filled cries filling the air.**

Slowly, Eric managed to lift his head up to look at himself in the vanity mirror. His eyes were haunted, his long dark hair a wet mess flowing behind his head with a few stray locks in front of his face.

 **An almost cocky smile on his face as he strode out of his and Shelly's room, bare from the waist up, crouching beside the couch and gently running the backs of his fingers up Shelly's arm as she read. Her pearly white smile as she pretended to ignore him, hoping to get a rise out of him, the teasing only broken by her warm fingers intertwining with his.  
Eric slowly peeling away Shelly's clothing from her perfect body, kissing her as if it were the last time they were able to even share a moment like that, promises whispered into each other's ears.**

They were promises that would remain unfulfilled, through no fault of his own, and Eric's focus flashed back to the memory of her trying to get that rise out of him as he half-showed off. If she were here, she probably wouldn't have expected Eric to raise a fist and smash it into the cold glass of the mirror, shattering it from the corner out. He gasped and shuddered with pain.

Pain…That's what his love for Shelly had driven him toward now. Pain was all he wanted.  
But not pain for himself…pain for the group of human swine that had violated her and stolen them both away from life. Eric would never forget them. And he would not forgive.

Nor would he fear them.

Even as he thought all of this, he shuddered again, as if someone were infusing every bone and blood cell in his body with hard, unyielding iron. His mind focused sharply, the faces of his death swimming into crystal-clear focus.

The dark, knife-bearing Tin-Tin.  
The drug-driven, ratty Funboy.  
The scruffy, raspy T-Bird.  
And Skank, the drug-addled human dog.

 _That's right, kid. Memorize their names and learn their faces. Ice the bastards, and nothing can stop you on your way back to Shelly. Work for the living, you bleed like everyone else._

"Thanks", Eric sardonically uttered out, his gaze flashing to the crow's perch on one of the loft's rafters.  
Digging into another vanity drawer, he found an old compact of Shelly's, still full of ghost-white face powder, and a full tube of black lipstick. He went properly for the compact first, fingering a good pile of the powder and rubbing it all over into his face until it was as white as a ghost. Eric was beginning to further lose himself as he grabbed the lipstick and gently applied it around his eyes, making them seem like those of a skull, one vertical crack down the middle of each of them. He then applied it around his lips and up from the corners.  
The rain began to fall again as he looked at himself, his face a living near-spitting image of the Greek Irony mask that hung from the destroyed vanity mirror.

His irony would express itself through him rising from the dead and murdering the foursome of sewer rats that had once done the same to him and Shelly. His life for theirs, his love driving him to revenge.  
Slowly, he rose from the chair and strolled over to the closet to where he knew his old touring suitcase would be waiting for him, bringing it over to the vanity before opening it up. Inside, he found some old flyers for his band, Hangman's Joke, and their show downtown at the club known as Club Trash. Eric knew that that location would be important later on during the night, or perhaps the next, though how it was important he couldn't pin down.  
That wasn't what he was hoping to find anyway. What he was looking for was just underneath – a form-fitting black sweater that he slowly pulled over himself, being careful not to mess up his pasted-on mask of irony. Then came his favorite pair of leather pants, to replace the suit pants that were stained with the rain and mud gathered from his trip out of the grave.

 _The night is yours, pal. Find your killers and escort them to hell's pearly gates._

He crouched down to lace up his black boots, giving Gabriel a gentle pet behind his head, before stepping to the center of the room. The crow, sensing Eric's movements, took flight from the rafter to settle down on his shoulder like the Flying Dutchman's albatross. Lightning flashed outside, thunder crashing against the dark night sky of the inner city, the night itself full of promises and seduction.  
Eric would indeed heed that very call tonight; ready to inflict fear upon those who had unknowingly killed themselves a year ago when they came a-calling on him and his love.

No, he would not forgive. No, he would not forget.

And he certainly would not fear what the night gave to him.

Fear was only for his enemies.

Fear. And bullets.


	3. Part 2-2: Fear-Devil's Prelude

Part 2.2 - Fear: Devil's Prelude

The 9mm bullet spun slowly upwards through the air before descending down into the dark cave of Funboy's mouth.

"Heh, tha's good", said the ratty-looking man sitting on his left, his voice matching his face. Skank looked on in further admiration as Funboy, long blond hair swishing back behind his head from his tank top-covered chest, downed his whiskey shot in one fell swoop before letting out a yelp as it went down. "Whoo! See if you can top that, man. Can ya?"

The man he was talking to, none other than T-Bird, slowly placed his bullet on his tongue, showing off with a comical eye-roll before taking it fully into his mouth. "Here's to Devil's Night, my new favorite holiday", he toasted, downing his own shot and following it up with the ashes of his put-out cigarette on his tongue.

"God, are you outta your muthafuckin' mind, man!?" Tin-Tin asked, horrified and impressed at the same time, smoke billowing from his clenched teeth. Skank gave his friend T-Bird an admiring look – they'd been friends before the gang formed, Skank treating T-Bird like a big brother – before he raised his own shot and promptly had it smacked back down to the table by Tin-Tin. Then Tin-Tin threw down his own gunpowder medicine and alcohol without even taking the time to let things settle in between. "Pussies drink last, man", he chuckled to Skank.

But Skank wasn't in a laughing mood, and he bolted to his feet, snatching up the Colt that T-Bird that given him long ago and leveling it at the dark-skinned man's head. "Fuck you, Tin-Tin!"  
"Hey…" Tin-Tin let the exclamation linger as he slowly rose to his feet, drawing one of his knives and holding it against the homely man's throat. "That shit ain't even loaded, man."  
"This one is", Funboy cut in, aiming his .357 Magnum at Tin-Tin's cheek.  
Bolting up straight, T-Bird held Skank's gun downwards while aiming his own at each of them in turn, "Which of you Motor City mother _fuckers_ wants to bet me this one _isn't!?_ " He held the readied gun at them a second longer before…"Hey! Fire it up! Fire it up!" The rest of the gang joined in their own chanting ritual, thrusting their arms with their words as Funboy's girlfriend, a buxom blond-haired beauty named Darla, came over with some more shots.

"Here's your shooters", she said in a soft, scratchy voice while setting the serving tray down. "Put your guns away, huh guys?" They'd been thrown out of worse places for less, but they did as she asked, greeting Darla with a general air of politeness. As much as they could manage, anyway, with Tin-Tin running the tip of his tongue against Darla's exposed shoulder as she shared a deep kiss with Funboy.  
"Hey, come on, man. None of that right now", T-Bird said as he nudged Tin-Tin's shoulder. "We can have fun on our own anyway – don't you have some more scum-bags to carve down?"  
Tin-Tin straightened up to look at T-Bird, a glint in his eyes and a dark smile below that. "I can always find some. But I got some quick scratch to make first, chief", he said darkly as he departed from the club, leaving Funboy and Darla to do what they would, T-Bird and Skank heading into the bigger part of the building where a rock concert was gong down.

It was down a long stretch of road, but it was the only pawnshop that Tin-Tin actually trusted with what he picked up from the gang's nights of fun. It also helped Gideon's Pawn Shop in both of their favors – he sold Gideon his stuff, Gideon gave him just enough money to count as good, and he stayed protected by the gang and their boss. It didn't stop the fat, slovenly coward from being a rough smart-ass with all of them, though.  
Tin-Tin pulled the door open with all the politeness of a rhino, the bell clanging around the walls stacked with disused musical instruments, cans of gasoline, and the front shelf that contained various used guns and knives. All he wanted was the shit he had off of his hands and he back on the street, ready to cut someone down.

"Oh, great. The meat cleaver's back", Gideon retorted, his voice thick and phlegmy from all the cigarettes he smoked.  
"Yeah, and he might cut up those fatty slabs you call hands", Tin-Tin fired back – typical repartee. He slapped down a small handful of rings on the glass counter, the surface creaking dangerously from the impact. "There's some more rings for ya – 24 karat gold."  
Gideon looked down at them doubtfully, lifting one of the rings up to his heavily-lifted eyes hidden beneath the shadow of his baseball cap, the emblem GIDS across the front. "24 karat, huh? It's 18 karat, probably fake."

"Oh, come on, a leather purse. _Leather_ ", Tin-Tin offered next, purring out the last word in a dangerously persuasive manner. The dark-brown purse seemed to sit just as threateningly on the desk before them both before Gideon inspected it. "Oh, Jesus, what is this, Tin? A blood stain on there?"  
Tin-Tin let out a soft shrug – sometimes the dirty business had to follow him even here. As long as his stuff sold, he couldn't care less.  
"I'll give you $50, and I hate charities!" Gideon finally stated, forking over the money and holding it out to the dark-skinned gangbanger, who looked at it with mild disdain. "Take it or leave it. Decisions, decisions, am I right?"

Tin-Tin shook his head and took the money from his hand, stuffing the wrinkled bills in his coat pocket as he walked backwards toward the door. "You cheap-ass, chrome dome, child molestin' saprophyte motherfucker."  
Gideon wasn't even fazed. After years of putting up with this guy's roughness, he'd grown all but numb to it. "Close the gate when you go out!"  
"Oh, I close this up for you real good, massa!" Tin-Tin mockingly responded in a stereotypical southern drawl before flipping him a certain finger as a farewell present. "Fuck you."  
Chuckling lightly as Tin-Tin finally closed the door behind him, Gideon couldn't help but let out one last verbal stab. "Sit on it and twirl, steam-head."  
Meanwhile, neither could Tin-Tin as he closed the metal gate behind him and slammed the lock shut. "You're lucky I didn't stab your fat ass."  
Making his way across the trash-soaked street and out to the alley behind an adjacent building, Tin-Tin let his long dark dreadlocks get soaked by the rain before flinging them back behind his head before he saw something that made him stop with morbid curiosity.  
There was a menacing, dark bird sitting on a trashed palette, looking at him as if decided whether or not it wanted to kill him.  
Little did he know that the crow would indeed bring him his death.

* * *

Eric had been watching him the whole time.  
Right before he had made it to the building where Tin-Tin was hiding behind, he had discovered that he could observe the man himself through the eyes of the bird of prey guiding him. That guiding gaze, through which he had observed the self-satisfied gait of the bastard, had taken him running across the roofs of the many buildings that had separated him from his first target. Jumping like a track star over the large caps that separated each edifice, swinging across cold wet awnings, and finally to the edge of the building where he was poised to jump, he still couldn't help but feel surprised that he had actually managed to do those superhuman feats. Out of all the things he expected even after rising from the dead, this hadn't been first on his list. Maybe he could've made the meters-long jump to the other building he readied himself for.  
Instead, he let himself fall, letting out a soft breath as his body arced around to the point where he was looking up at the dark sky, watching his pet bird take flight as his body hit the trash-covered ground with a dull thud. He could feel his bones shake and his blood ripple, yet not one of them even received the smallest of cracks.

 _Showoff much?_

Even as the bird communicated into his mind, Eric let out a laughing fit at his good misfortune – tonight he would not merely be a mortal bringer of death, but the very Angel of the concept himself.  
He rose to his feet, bracing himself as the first of his targets laid his eyes on Eric. "What the hell you all painted up for, crackhead, huh!?"  
Eric didn't let the words have any effect on him as he stomped his way across the alley.  
"Halloween ain't 'til _mañana_ ", Tin-Tin uttered – even if he was wrong by a day about when Halloween actually was – before he braced himself for the fight that was about to happen. It came to him quickly enough.

Suddenly he found himself thrown to the ground, the fiery barrel he'd lit his cigarette from kicked aside, Eric having tackled him hard into a dirty puddle. Tin-Tin drew his knife to try cutting his throat, but Eric held his knife hand away from either of them until it dropped away. Then Eric heaved the bastard back up by his arm, keeping a grip on the limb as it was rendered useless until Tin-Tin broke free.  
They bolted back up, two wet messes, Tin-Tin landing a hard punch across Eric's face. Even as he rolled with it, though, it didn't seem to even faze Eric before he grabbed Tin-Tin again, sending powerful right and left hooks across his face and jabs into his belly before he picked Tin-Tin up and shoved him away. Taking the time to crack his neck, Eric moved forward toward Tin-Tin once again.  
He ducked away from another attempted punch from Tin-Tin before landing a few more of his own – across his dark face, only now showing fear, before Eric tossed him toward another brick wall, this one brick with tin supports against its upper half.  
Tin-Tin landed and collapsed to the ground in a heap, groaning lightly from the bruises forming across his body. Eric didn't even let him try to get up, sending a knee into his gut before rearing for another punch, screaming with the kind of rage only the Devil could cheer for. "Fuck you, _murderer!_ "

 **The dark-skinned man cackling as he forcefully mounted Shelly.**

"The fuck you talking about, man!? I ain't murdered nobody – the fuck you want, man!?"  
"I want you to tell me a story. A man in a woman in a loft, a year ago." Even as Eric answered Tin Tin's panicked inquiry, he could see it again –

 **-shedding away his knife holsters as he clambered atop the bed –**

"You're outta your fuckin' mind-"  
"LISTEN!" Eric barked, his fury on fire. "I'm sure you'll remember. You killed them, on Halloween."  
"Yeah, yeah, Halloween. Some dude, some bitch, whatever. Why do you-"  
 _SMACK._ Eric's hand hard across his face snapped him quiet again. "Her name was Shelly, you pig. You cut her – you raped her."

"Shelly, yeah…" Suddenly the memories came back to Tin-Tin – Eric could see it in his eyes. "I shanked her pink ass and she _loved_ it!" Tin-Tin let that remark linger as Eric began to shudder with grief and despair. In that moment, Tin-Tin broke free and grabbed a thick lead pipe, beating Eric across his body with it – across his abs, around and down on his back, and again when he tried to rise from it.  
Oh, this pain was glorious! Concentrating on driving it into the back of his brain where it would fuel his own fury, Eric struggled to get to his feet, breathing heavily through blossoming, then fading, bruises. "Murderer…murderer!"

Tin-Tin forcefully tossed the pipe down to the ground and drew two of his knifes, flourishing them around like he were a magician preparing for a grand performance. "Let me tell you about murder, man – it's fun, it's easy, and you're gonna learn all about it."  
Eric managed to crawl against the brick wall, holding it up – the pain from the beating successfully sustaining him after its first uncontrollable flashes – as he heard the pest continue to brag. "I'd like you to meet two buddies of mine…we never miss."

Tin-Tin, finishing his ten paces, turned back around and flung one of his knives at Eric, but the dark angel ducked from the knife to hear it collapse to the ground against a trashed barrel. Undaunted, Eric began walking toward the swine as he drew another knife, flinging it with a sideways flick of his hand.  
Never taking his gaze away from Tin-Tin, Eric ducked his head away and swatted the deathly metal aside in mid-air. "Try harder. Try again!" This was met with a cry of frustrated anger of Tin-Tin experiencing his first misses as he flung a third knife from a holster at Eric. Eric could see the deathly metal spinning through the air – right between his clapping hands.

Now Tin-Tin was scared, even more so when Eric flung the knife back to its original owner, and he could feel the sharpness of it as it buried itself into his shoulder. Effectively pinned to the wall of rotting palette wood behind him, he was helpless to do anything else as Eric got in his face, drawing yet another knife away from Tin-Tin's belt and holding it aloft, a satanic grin spreading across his painted face.

"Victims. Aren't we all?" Eric thrust the knife downward into Tin-Tin's other shoulder, effectively pinning him to the wood against his back, the scream of pain that rang from his mouth sounding like music to his very ears.

"Now…I require another story from you, Tin-Tin."

"Oh, go fuck yourself, you—" Then Tin-Tin got a good look at Eric's face – and recognized it. "No…you're him, aren't you? The guy we threw out the window?"  
"In the flesh", Eric replied.  
"But…I saw you die!"  
"As you see your own death before you now?" Eric inquired, reaching around Tin-Tin's waist and withdrawing another two knives from the holsters he found there. "As fearfully as Shelly saw hers?"  
"She screamed…I wanted to shut her up, to cut her…but she-"  
"A year ago", Eric continued, "you helped kill her. There was no money to steal, but you took a ring she had on. Where is it?  
Tin-Tin seemed to stumble over the words, all composure lost. "I- I don't-"  
Another scream of pain, blood flooding down his trunk as Eric thrust the knife deep into his chest. Not too deeply yet – he needed to know. "Where is the ring?"

"I…always…sold that stuff down on Gratiot…Gideon's Pawn Shop.." Tin-Tin managed to eke out the words in a dying whisper, his throat filling up with blood, before looking up at Eric as whatever light that was in his eyes quickly began to leave. "Please…"  
It wasn't a cry for his life, but to put him out of his misery. Eric decided to do just that, thrusting the knife further into his heart. He was still groaning and blubbering with pain as Eric picked up the leftover knives and buried them into the man's body – one to the base of his abs, the other just below his pectorals, two to both sides of his ribs, and one final knife to the middle of his gut. One for every major organ.

Eric tilted his head back and let the last drops of rain fall onto his painted face, Tin-Tin's face reflecting sleep even above the scarlet flows down his body. Gently, Eric dipped his thumbs into the bleeding rivulets; painting a dark symbol across the tin wall above its base of brick he'd been thrown against. When finished, it seemed to loosely resemble the silhouette of the bird of prey that was quick to mount his shoulder after he had finished his artwork.

"How wonderful is Death. Death and his brother Sleep", Eric murmured as a farewell, stopping only to pick up the dark leather trenchcoat that Tin-Tin had flung aside and throw it across his shoulders. He clenched his fists as they appeared through the sleeves, the dark material creaking as it moved with him. "Number one", he whispered, disappearing into the night alley's shadows.


	4. Part 2-3: Fear-The Atrocity Exhibition

Part 2.3 - Fear: The Atrocity Exhibition

The heaving mass of people gyrated, jumped, and moved to whatever rhythm they could find within the slow, spacey beat of the music provided by the rock band playing on stage tonight. The tinny sound from the guitars helped to give a top layer to the song that only seemed to soar far above the musical base the percussion provided, but the soulful vocals of the slim female singer somehow managed to keep it all grounded.  
None of this mattered much to T-Bird as he forced his way through the heaving crowd, Skank keeping pace close behind him. "Look at this mess!" T-Bird cried humorously. "What's this world comin' to!?" This earned himself Skank's reply of "Yah, eh's a mess."  
As soon as they managed to reach the bar just to the right of the stage, T-Bird turned back to Skank and shook him to get his attention, pointing to his left. "I've gotta go upstairs – report from the front!"  
Skank nodded in understanding before T-Bird turned to go, shoving harder through the mass of people with a cry of "Get outta my way, you worms!"

Soon enough, T-Bird managed to reach the stairs, darting up them two at a time around the sharp corners the metal platforms took until he heard a deep, rather quiet voice.  
"…pretty out of sight. Why don'tchu ladies come by later, check me out?"  
As soon as the two ladies in question spotted T-Bird coming up the steps, they soon departed from their tall, dark-skinned escort. The man, Grange, served as the personal bodyguard and top lieutenant to T-Bird's boss. As a rule, T-Bird respected the man, but when he found out just what lengths Grange went to to protect their boss and how much he seemed to relish the thrill of what T-Bird's gang did – even supplying better weapons and gear – T-Bird's liking of Grange grew more and more. It was as close to friendship T-Bird ever got to, aside from what he had with his gang.

It turned out that Grange used to be a soldier in the Vietnam War, but had just managed to scrape out with an honorable discharge – his superiors had stated he had a deep obsession with death and murder. Here, as the top bodyguard for T-Bird's boss, it served him well, and T-Bird reported to him not just because he was the best line to their boss, but because he knew Grange loved to hear about it.

"Guess what? Arcade Games fell down, went boom.", T-Bird reported, barely keeping the satisfied note in his voice from being heard. However, Grange must've heard it, as he smiled in much the same way T-Bird felt. "Boom", he repeated, slowly donning his thick-lensed wire-frame glasses.  
"We even found someone to have some fun with, but…she wasn't with that even after seeing what we got up to. Can ya believe that? It's tragic", T-Bird concluded, lighting up a cigarette.

"Gather your soldiers, T", Grange told him. "You're on for tomorrow night – no sweat."  
Tomorrow night. Devil's Night. The new best holiday of T-Bird's life. To say that he was excited about it was an understatement, but he didn't let himself get too fired up for it just yet. "Is the man in?"  
"He's taking a meeting", Grange responded with a sly wink, referencing their boss.

* * *

The man in question was sitting on the edge of a silk-sheeted bed, contemplating a graveyard-filled snow globe, the body of a nude voluptuous woman lying away from him on the other side.  
It may have been a liability to let himself have these moments, but the man known as Top Dollar never could seem to help himself otherwise. He always had these sentimental journeys when it came to his old man – he'd taught Top Dollar everything he knew, from how to successfully run a grift to keeping order among fellow gang members through fear to even how to properly start a Devil's Night bonfire and keep it from stopping.  
Even though he led his own huge gang – in particular its top four members, who reported directly to him – there were times when he missed the sheer thrill of being out there himself, as an eager son of a criminal or as a crime lord in his own right.

It wasn't just this that Top Dollar had learned though. His own father had an obsession with the occult back in the day, always keeping an eye over his shoulder for any supernatural entities that may be right at his back. He always believed that some such thing would, one day, catch up with him and escort him to the gates of hell. Thus, Top Dollar had been taught everything from A to Z on that front as well – demons, ghosts, spirits, and even their own forms of vengeance and anger.

Just as he'd finished properly reflecting on all of these lessons, he heard the shuffling of soft bare feet heading his way before they settled next to him. Those feet belonged to his Asian half-sister, Myca. For all that Top Dollar had learned from his father, the fact that he had a sister born from a disowned mother of a fellow occultist was the last he'd learned. Right as she'd come into his life, however, Myca proved herself to be useful in everything that Top Dollar himself was skilled at, even furthering his knowledge and abilities in the occult.  
"You're thinking about the past", Myca said, her voice soft and wispy with the faintest hint of a slurred, yet sharp, accent. If he didn't know better, he thought Myca could read minds. As a matter of fact, he had no doubt that she could.

"Dad gave me this…fifth birthday", Top Dollar said in his own deep, rasping tones. "He said, 'Childhood's over the moment you know you're gonna die.'" If that were true, he'd thought then, he would've been dead before he'd even reached his teen years. As it was, he was surprised to have reached his late 30's at this point in time.

He turned his gaze to his half-sister just as she'd leaned up to plant a soft, affectionate kiss on his forehead, the faintest of marks staying behind there. "Is she asleep?" she inquired, referencing their guest.  
Looking behind him, Top Dollar gently grabbed her shoulder and tilted her toward them. The woman's skin was already beginning to grow cold, her bright green eyes free from any light of life that once shone in them.

"Hm. I think we broke her", he answered, his voice betraying no evidence of sympathy or sorrow for the woman's plight. Only excitement grew within him as he watched Myca pick up her favorite kris knife, holding it to the green orbs of the now-dead woman.  
"I love her eyes. Pretty…" she whispered, the blade of the knife descending toward the orbs, Top Dollar's gaze unable to leave the sight…

* * *

Across town, a different set of eyes wasn't able to leave the sight it held either.  
Officer Albrecht had gotten a call from a paranoid apartment tenant who'd heard loud noises and screams coming from outside. He went out by himself to check out the problem, when he'd found the bloodied corpse of Tin-Tin and subsequently put a call into the local hospital. Before too long, they'd managed to find their way to where Albrecht was and were now carting Tin-Tin's body into the back of the old yet reliable ambulance.

"Who's this sack of shit?" Torres had finally joined the party, a squad of fellow officers having followed him.  
"That's Tin-Tin, one of T-Bird's little helpers", Albrecht responded, having told Torres about the many atrocities that had happened thanks to him and the rest of the merry crew he worked with. It turned out he didn't need to bother aside from the matter of names though – Torres already had a startlingly good idea of who they were. He may not have agreed with their crimes, but as long as they didn't hurt the force, Torres didn't seem to care.

"I think you can rule out accidental death", Albrecht finished rather facetiously, raising a cigarette to his lips and lighting it.  
Torres rolled his eyes at Albrecht's smart remark. "Don't any of your street demons have real grown-up names?"  
Albrecht merely shrugged, looking around intently. "This could be a turf hit, but it doesn't look like your usual gang crap." He was starting to think like a detective again, and to Albrecht, it felt good. He felt that it meant he was actually using his brain for something, much unlike the tedium of being a beat cop.  
Sadly, Torres didn't seem to disagree. "Come on, Albrecht. Spare me. You're a beat cop now, so be a beat cop", he said, his tone condescending.  
Albrecht couldn't resist firing back with sarcastic shade. "Right. And I'm supposed to thank you for that, right?"

"Word to the wise: watch your fucking mouth", Torres answered, his tone now deadly serious. He was rewarded with another of Albrecht's shrugs before his gaze went to the bloody bird-like symbol on the tin wall close to them. "What the hell do you call that?"  
Albrecht looked over his shoulder at the painted blood on the wall, taking another drag of his cigarette before turning back and stating, "I'd call it blood, Detective." One last verbal poke at him: "I suppose you'll write it up as, ah…graffiti."  
Torres had finally had it. "You can leave my crime scene now, ok?"  
"Whatever you say…boss", Albrecht finished, hammering the last word home with mock importance as he walked away from the scene, leaving Torres and his merry band alone.

* * *

Meanwhile, not too far away from Albrecht departing the crime scene, Eric had finally arrived at Gideon's Pawn Shop. The walk had seemed farther than it really was, the clashing emotions of vengeful good and bad at home in his head. He'd decided, although it was difficult to come to terms with it, to try to take them both in equal measure. He had to remind himself that this was for Shelly. This was for what the bastards had done to them both that long fateful year ago.  
Revenge and love, the estranged siblings, guided him now.

As if to reinforce the point, the crow swooped down to nestle lightly on Eric's shoulder just as he heard Gideon's voice shout from inside, "Hey! Piss off – we're closed! _Cerrado!_ "  
Not for me, Eric thought, beating the palm of his hand against the metal gate that separated the front door from the street. Then he noticed the lock, grabbing it and bending it out of shape until it hung there, wrecked.  
"Go sleep it off somewhere else, dusthead, unless you wanna get mutilated!" he heard Gideon sing out again. His song needs some rhythm, Eric thought again, and he provided it with the slamming open of the metal gate.  
Somewhere inside, he heard Gideon cocking a gun – magnum, had to be – and muttering, "Damn creatures of the night. They never learn."

 _Indirectly helped destroy your life, now you're going to ruin his, eh kid?_

Stepping up to the front step, Eric proved his new pet's point by rapping more quietly on Gideon's front door. "Hey!" he heard Gideon shout, but before he could let the man attempt to finish, Eric decided to invite himself in.

With a scythe-like left hook, a crackling explosion of glass showered into the pawnshop, scaring its slovenly proprietor even as the rest of Eric followed suit. He spread his arms like wings, the crow taking that as a signal to fly directly over Gideon's face – through its eyes, Eric could see as much as feel the fear radiating off of the bastard.  
"'Suddenly, I heard a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door…'" Eric quoted from Poe's "The Raven", absentmindedly brushing some stray glass shards off of his shoulder as he stepped closer to Gideon's prone, crouched form.

"What are you talkin' about?" the man asked, a shudder in his voice.  
"You heard me rapping, right?" Eric asked rhetorically.  
"You're trespassin' is what you're doing", Gideon answered. "And you owe me a fuckin' new door!"  
Eric looked back at the door – no consequence to him anyway – before looking back at Gideon, hearing the crow sound off in his head.

 _What you're looking for's still here, all right. He's got his gun, but that won't stop you, will it?_

"I'm looking for something in an engagement ring – gold", Eric stated, as if he were a regular paying customer just going about his daily grind. He kept that attitude set in his braced body as Gideon raised his gun with a cry of "You're lookin' for a coroner, shit-for-brains!"  
With a thundering kick, the gun sounded off, Eric feeling the slug tear into his gut and then out his back, sending bloody pulp with it. The force was enough to make him recoil inward, but it seemed his vengeance alone was enough to keep him on his feet. Already he could feel the blood pouring back into his body, the bullet hole closing up and leaving only untouched skin in its place. Slowly, Eric raised his head with another evil smile, a softly sinister chuckle escaping him.

"Oh, shit on me…shit on me. Shit on me-!" Eric quickly snuffed out Gideon's cries of surprised fear with a hand across his throat, picking him up and throwing him clear across the store. Gideon collapsed across the counter and onto the floor, groaning with pain. Slowly, Gideon just managed to get up, swinging a baseball bat in front of him-

-But Eric was no longer there.

Then he suddenly reappeared, his painted face hanging upside down in front of Gideon. While Gideon was still recovering, Eric had run to the counter, jumped atop it, and soared up into the air before dangling from one of the display hooks by one foot.

"Mr. Gideon. You're not paying attention", Eric stated before he shot his upper body back up, getting free from the display hook and landing in a crouch on the counter. Gideon took another swing with the bat at Eric-  
-But Eric caught the bat with one of his hands and flung it away before smashing the countertop glass with Gideon's fleshy meat hook and drawing a large combat knife from within, running it through Gideon's hand and effectively pinning it to the countertop. Then, before Gideon could start properly squealing like a stuck pig, Eric placed a hand over Gideon's mouth.

"I repeat, a gold engagement ring, yes?" Eric asked again. A dreading nod served as Gideon's answer.  
Eric continued, "It was pawned here a year ago…" He moved his hand away from Gideon's mouth and stood, walking the length of the counter. "…By a customer of yours named Tin-Tin." He then jumped from the countertop, grabbing the pole of a fence that separated the surplus pawn items from the main store, and swung around it to face Gideon through the metal fence, "He confided in me before he ran out of breath!" Eric finished, by way of informing the shop owner of his former patron's fate.

Gideon didn't seem to care, fumbling at the embedded knife even as Eric began to trash the back room, tossing away papers and stock crates. "Well? Am I warmer!?" he shouted.  
"The fuck you talkin' about!?" Gideon wailed.  
"Don't you know this game?" Eric inquired, as if they were two kids on a playground, the tossed and torn papers confetti from a party.  
"Alright, the rings! I'll tell ya about the rings!" Gideon's shouts brought Eric to a gradual standstill, his dark gaze locked on the fat bastard as he pointed to another section of the counter behind the fence. "They're in a-a metal box, it's under the shelf there!" Eric looked to see the back of the desk was really two sliding doors, and sure enough, behind them was a dark metal box. He sat down slowly, extracting the box even as Gideon hurled more obscenities at him.

The ring was in here, all right –

 **"Look, it goes up to the attic." Eric's statement at Shelly's asking where a ladder had come from, holding out a beckoning arm before Shelly came forward and climbed the ladder, a curious smile on her angelic face.**

\- and slowly, Eric opened the box to see at least a couple hundred rings inside. He didn't need a memory flash to know where these had come from – former victims of the gang he was hunting, no doubt. One by one, he picked up the rings, then flung them to the side. "No, no, no, no, no…" The sixth ring proved to be the right one. Another memory overtook him–

 **Shelly climbing up the ladder to the attic, seeing it brightly lit with a multitude of candles grouped around a small black box. Picking up the box and opening it to reveal that same ring. "Oh, Eric…it's beautiful! I don't believe it!" Looking down to see Eric climbing up to join her as she put it on her finger before enveloping him in her arms. "I love you."**

"As I do you, Shelly…" Eric was unaware he'd even whispered the words as he slipped the ring on his left pinky. Suddenly, a fresh torrent of rage overtook him, and he bolted to his feet and kicked open the other gate door near the main entrance, open gas cans and barrels clattering and spilling onto the floor. Grabbing a hanging 12-gauge shotgun by the gate door, Eric tossed the ring box he'd picked up onto the counter, and then hefted the shotgun up to point it into Gideon's fat face. "You have one chance to live."

"Take anything you want", Gideon conceded, finally freeing his knife-stuck hand and fishing out a rag to wrap around said hand. "Take anything!"  
"Thank you", Eric answered, bending down to pick up a gas can. As he straightened back up, he noticed an old Fender Telecaster guitar with a cherry red finish and rosewood fingerboard on an oak neck. He'd definitely be taking that.  
But first, he had work to do. "Now, Gideon, you're gonna tell me where to find the rest of Tin-Tin's little party pals", Eric ordered, upending the gas can's contents across the counter and then tossing the empty tin aside.

"It's the Pit, alright? They all hang out at the Pit", Gideon answered with a mix of fear and anger, finishing his wrapping. "All of T-Bird's li-little potato heads hang out there. And Funboy, he lives there upstairs, alright!?"  
"Funboy, T-Bird, Tin-Tin…." He had a memory flash at the first of the names –

 **Funboy tugging off his pants from atop Shelly's shaking form. "Oh, baby…!"**

Suddenly, Eric lunged forward to smash the front desk's display fronts with the butt of the shotgun. He showed no signs of care for Gideon's loud protests as a front glass pane was broken – "A whole jolly pirate club!" –then the second top glass pane – "With jolly pirate nicknames!" – and finally the second front glass pane before Eric lifted the shotgun into Gideon's face again to shut his ramblings up. "Hold still!"

Now dead silent again, Gideon raised his hands, his only movements flinching as Eric picked up the rings he'd previously tossed aside, and did so again, tossing them at Gideon this time. "Each one of these is a life – a life you helped destroy, Gideon."

Gideon fell to his knees, nearly clasping his hands together. "I'm begging you, man, don't kill me", he whispered in a rasp. Slowly, Eric raised the shotgun back up and took his finger off its trigger. "Relax. I'm not going to kill you", he reassured. "Instead, your job will be to tell the rest of them that death is coming for them…tonight." Eric lifted the box of rings and tipped the corner of it down the shotgun barrel, most of the leftover rings pouring down into it before the rest were flung aside with the box.

"Tell them Eric Draven sends his regards."

Eric then turned around, grabbing the red Fender guitar by its strap and setting it around his shoulder, the guitar supported underneath his opposite arm. As he departed the shop, he heard Gideon sound off again, his voice filled with its former strength. "You walk outta here, and they're gonna erase yer sorry ass! Y-you're nothin' but street grease, ya hear!? Street grease, you motherfucker!"  
Eric turned to face him over his shoulder and merely asked, "Is that gasoline I smell?"  
The gas, the gun – suddenly it all came together in Gideon's head. He began to scream negatively, even as Eric walked fully outside, the crow flying out after him and soaring into the sky above. Then Eric turned around, an angry grimace on his face as he readied the 12-gauge and squeezed the trigger.

The rings flew out of the barrel, followed by the buckshot of the ammo proper, sending a plume of fire out into the pawnshop. A moment later, the shop itself became engulfed in a huge blossom of heat and sound, the orange-yellow shades of the fire bursting from every orifice. The explosion was even powerful enough to send Gideon flying out of a side door leading to the alley, collapsing against the brick wall before screaming with pain and fear – his leg had caught on fire.

Meanwhile, Eric began to stomp off toward Club Trash – the club where the Pit was contained. He wasn't planning on stopping for anything – at least not until a certain police officer with his gun at the ready had shouted, "Don't move!"  
Eric turned to contemplate the officer, standing in front of his idle police cruiser, with a gentle smile as he kept the tone of his answer light. "I thought the police always said 'Freeze'."  
"Well, I am the police and I say 'don't move', Snow White. You move and you're dead", the police officer ordered again.  
Slowly, Eric repositioned the guitar so it was hanging against his back, the strap tight against his chest. "And I say I'm dead…" He raised his hands, walking toward the cop. "And I move."

The police officer cinched his handgun up, solidifying his stance. "Not one more step. I'm serious."  
Bowing his head courteously, Eric replied, "Then shoot, if you will…Officer Albrecht. I fear I should warn you though…bullets can't hurt me, nor can knives harm me."

"What are you, nuts – walking into a gun?" Officer Albrecht asked. "You high?"  
"You don't remember me", Eric said – a statement instead of a question.  
"What are you talking about?" Officer Albrecht inquired, the assertive look on his face slowly beginning to crumble into being visibly freaked out.  
"Do you remember Shelly Webster?"  
"Shelly Webster's dead, my friend", Albrecht stated, keeping what was let of his stoicism in his voice. "I want you to move over to the curb there – come on, move it!" Eric humbly acquiesced and slowly sat down on the curb, moving his guitar into his lap and contemplating it as Albrecht continued, "Alright…I'm waiting for backup, it's getting too friggin' weird for me."

Eric smiled up at him ironically. "Oh, it gets better", he announced, one hand moving against the lapels of his leather trenchcoat. "You remember T-Bird, yes? He had a friend who shouldn't have played with knives. Speaking of which, you like the coat?"  
"It was you!" Albrecht cried with realization, his gaze flickering between Eric and the people freshly showing up to loot what they could from the burning façade of Gideon's Pawnshop. "You're the guy who murdered Tin-Tin!"  
"Heh…he was already dead, Officer Albrecht", Eric stated. "He died a year ago, the moment he and the rest of his gang touched her." He looked up, noticing Albrecht looking over at a sad-faced man with flowing blond hair make off with a TV cradled in his arms in a slightly stooped gait. Still, Eric knew Albrecht was listening, and his gaze flashed back to Eric as he finished speaking.

"They're all dead. They just don't know it yet."

Albrecht's gaze flickered again before he finally shouted, "Hey, get away from there!" at the looters, resulting in the last of them beating a hasty retreat back to wherever they'd come from. Albrecht turned back to Eric –  
\- but Eric had disappeared as well. Not even a breath of wind to mark his departure.  
"Oh, great", Albrecht spoke to himself. "Guy shows up looking like a mime from hell…and you lose him right out in the open. Well, at least he didn't do that…'walking against the wind' shit, I hate that." As his final words left his mouth, a few police cars, their klaxons blaring with flashing lights, showed up behind him. He could hear the car doors closing, one of the departing drivers asking, "Little early for Devil's Night, isn't it!?"

Indeed it was, Albrecht thought. Indeed it was.


	5. Part 2-4: Fear-Captive Child

Part 2.4 - Fear: Captive Child

"Hey, kid, get the hell outta the road!"  
You could always turn, Sarah thought in response to the car driver's yell as she glided across the rainy pavement, the wheels of her skateboard clattering. She then stopped and kicked the board up into her hand once she stopped at the front door of Club Trash, walking up to it and letting herself in once she saw Darla and Funboy sitting at one of the tables, their arms wrapped around each other like octopi tentacles.

Another one of these nights…the thought went into Sarah's head, helping prepare herself for what might happen as she strode up to the table, clearing her throat to get their attention.

They looked over at her, Funboy with disdain, and Darla with the best motherly concern she could. It didn't help that she'd downed more than a couple shots. "I told you not to come here", she said, her voice just beginning to slur.  
"So I guess you won't be getting home until late, huh Darla?" Sarah asked rhetorically, letting a snippy tone get into her voice. At this point, she might as well let it – ever since this creep came into her mom's life, Sarah had been taking care of herself for the most part, and Darla whenever she had to sleep it off.  
"She's busy", Funboy stated testily. "Go play with your dolls or somethin', 'kay?"  
"I don't have any dolls", Sarah fired back, the attitude she'd displayed earlier growing.  
Funboy's only response was a dour expression that would've turned threatening were it not for Darla's intervening. "Get some food, huh?" she said, pushing a couple of dollars toward Sarah.  
She looked down at them, and then back at Darla. "Someone already bought me dinner – the police", Sarah responded, weighing down the last two words heavily even as she grabbed the bills and headed over to the bar, hearing Funboy's mocking repetition and Darla's giggling, but not letting it faze her.

Sarah heaved herself up onto a barstool, looking over at the tall, dark-haired bartender with a grizzled face but friendly demeanor. Once he spotted Sarah, a smile flashed across his face. At least someone was happy to see her.  
"Hey kid, aren't you a bit young to be sitting up here at the bar?" he inquired, his tone light in his somewhat growly voice.  
"Oh, ha ha ha. Very funny. That's a riot", Sarah responded in kind, her own smile finally breaking out across her face.  
"Everything alright with you and your mom, Sarah?" the bartender asked, only half-rhetorically. At this, Sarah shrugged indifferently – she wasn't really thinking of Darla as her mother anymore.  
"Not much more that was alright before", Sarah answered. "Cool if I get something to drink?"  
"The usual?"  
Sarah nodded, pulling out the crumpled dollar bills that Darla had given her, but the bartender pushed them away and said, "Hey, come on, Sarah. It's on the house, you know that." In a few seconds, he was handing her a rather large mug, the drink inside foaming at the top. "One root beer there for ya." Then the bartender looked past Sarah at Darla and Funboy, who'd just left their table and gone up the flight of stairs – Funboy's room, no doubt.  
"I dunno if I can help you much tonight, Sarah. Your mom – technically, she's off right now", the bartender stated, adding in a little nod to convey the meaning of the words.  
"Yeah, way off", Sarah agreed, slowly lifting the mug to her lips and taking a swallow. She let herself hang around the bar for a while, taking sips of her root beer now again, and kept on thinking. If only Shelly and Eric were here, she thought…if only they could take care of her again. Like they started doing last year…

* * *

Once she'd realized that she might never get her mom back, Sarah had taken to keeping track of the apartment they'd lived in ever since they had first moved to the inner city. Back then, Darla was a happier and livelier person, living to take care of her daughter and make a name for herself doing something good for the community. Turns out, that something good was essentially being the personal escort and arm candy for any of the crowd Funboy hung out with. Funboy in particular took a particular liking to her and wouldn't stop until she was exclusively his.  
Ironically, if it weren't because of that, she may never have met the two people who ended up mattering most to her that year ago. Sarah had snuck into the Pit while her mom was busy keeping bar and stumbled across Eric's band playing. She stuck close to the door, but the music seemed to get into her and encouraged her to let loose a bit, jumping around and banging her head to the grunge rock sound that Eric had going with his band.  
It was then that she'd met Shelly. "You having fun, little lady?" she'd asked, shouting over the loud music, a camera held ready in her hand and snapping pictures every once in a while.  
"Most fun I've had in a while! Who are these guys?"  
"Hangman's Joke – they're my boyfriend's band! I'm getting photo's of them as part of a photography project I'm working on at my job!"  
"Who's your boyfriend?"  
Shelly had pointed out Eric to her, and Sarah first got her proper sight of him – long black hair, handsome face with high cheekbones, a mellow voice that could croon or scream at any time, and just proved to be very attuned to the music. His guitar work definitely sealed the deal for her though – Sarah had always thought guitar players were the coolest members of any band. It helped that the guy was pretty well-built, even beneath the dark fabric of his clothes and the leather of his open jacket.  
"Where's your mom!?" Shelly then asked. Sarah pointed to the door that led back into the quiet bar before saying, "I don't think she'll be done for a while, and she doesn't care anyway."  
Sarah hadn't meant to sound sad when she answered, but Shelly must've picked up on it, because she then asked, "You want to hang with Eric and I for a while? I promise, we don't bite", Shelly added with a laugh before offering a hand. "I'm Shelly Webster, by the way!"  
Soon enough, Sarah had bonded more and more with both Shelly and Eric, looking up to them as sort of a hybrid of foster parents and older siblings – helping Shelly pick the best photos for her projects and the newspapers and magazines she sent them too, taking some guitar lessons from Eric, sharing their same sense of goofy and sometimes dirty humor, and always accepting their invitation to be at their place anytime one of them was home. Not even the happenings of Sarah's apartment were quiet between them. Yet no matter how often Sarah came and how long she stayed, they never once complained – in fact, they loved having her over, no matter the time of day or night.

* * *

All of that seemed like a life that should've belonged to someone else, whoever Sarah used to be back then and not the way she was now. She at least had people taking care of her when they could, but they still couldn't compare to Eric and Shelly. Downing the last of her root beer – the last of her memories moving to the back of her mind in tandem – she headed for the door, throwing a small wave of thanks to the bartender.  
"You need a lift back home, Sarah?"  
"Nah, I'll be alright. Thanks, though!" she called back as she opened the door, stepping out into the rainy Detroit night. Looking out at the rainy cityscape, she let a look of small disgust pass over her face before shrugging it off. As she went to the curb, a fat form of a man clad in a sweater and baseball cap pushed her aside and made his way into the bar, grumbling over a wrapped-up hand.

It was just after she'd boarded her skateboard and began to kick away when someone came back up from behind and grabbed Sarah around her stomach, pulling her away from the path of a speeding car.  
"Let go of me, you creep!" Sarah shouted, kicking her legs out to make things harder. She didn't need to bother – the guy let her go practically right away, leaning his forehead against a streetlight post. Once Sarah realized what had happened, she decided to apologize after yelling to the car, "You didn't even slow down, you dickhead!"

"He couldn't have stopped", the man said in a smooth, quiet voice. Sarah just managed to catch a glimpse of white behind the wet, black locks of long hair. Shrugging and still angry, she replied, "That guy was a buttface; I could've made it." She stepped closer to the man, looking at his pitch-white profile with the darkly lined eyes. "What are you supposed to be, a clown or something?" she teased.  
"Heh…sometimes", the man answered back. Sarah looked to his other side and noticed him holding a guitar. Weird, seeing a guy like this on the street, but she'd seen weirder. She shrugged again and stepped off the curb to retrieve her skateboard, it having glided halfway across the street when she was grabbed.  
"It's more like surfing than skating", she said. "I wish the rain would stop just once." She kicked the skateboard back up into her hand.

"It can't rain all the time."

She'd heard those words before. And that voice too, the more she thought about it. That was his voice, and the words lyrics from one of his songs – her favorite one. But it couldn't be – he was dead.

He'd _been_ dead.

But…"Eric?" She turned around, attempting to properly see just who she'd been saved by – but just as quickly as he'd appeared, the man was gone, leaving Sarah filled with questions.  
Questions and a small spark of hope that she hadn't felt in a long time. Hopefully, she'd know why that hope was there and what the answers to all her questions were.  
Even now, Eric's words from a year ago were right – the night seemed long, but even then, it couldn't rain all the time.


	6. Part 3-1: Irony-Pain & Retribution

Part 3.1 - Irony: Pain and Retribution

"You are very restless", Myca whispered, lying on the table on her side next to a flaming goblet as she watched Top Dollar pace, and then stop to look out the window every once in a while. At her words, he came back toward her, slowly pulling out his chair.  
"I just wish I was a little hungry again, that's all", Top Dollar replied. He'd loved going out even the night before Devil's Night just to scope out potential targets for that night, but now that he ran the whole city, his time outside – along with the fact that any good cop would want his head on a silver platter – had turned that chance to nil. And Top Dollar was smart enough to know to not take that chance at this point in his criminal career or life – he was just getting started, as far as he cared.  
"Be careful what you wish for…" Myca began.  
"And I just might get it, I know", Top Dollar answered, sitting down at his throne-like chair, softly rubbing the tip of his nose against Myca's in an affectionate manner. As he did, he let himself get a whiff of the smoke emanating from the flaming goblet – and the real human eyeball that burned within.

"There are energies aligning against you."  
"Seein' is believin', isn't it?" Top Dollar asked rhetorically, a sly smile on his face. For one moment, it was covered by the soft warmth of Myca's lips, and then set free just as quickly. He took the moment to run the tip of his tongue against a fingertip before dipping it into a tin of cocaine and tasting it. "Mm, yummy."

He was just about to start cutting a line of the Devil's dandruff before Grange walked in, T-Bird following close behind with a lit cigarette in his mouth. The expressions of both visitors were somber and suspicious. "Gideon's Pawnshop just burned down to the foundation", Grange reported.  
"Nobody cleared this little event with me", Top Dollar stated authoritatively, looking past Grange at T-Bird, as if expecting him to confess.  
"I wouldn't have anything to do with that", T-Bird said, his voice carrying an undercurrent of irony.  
"Oh, I'm sure you must be awfully disappointed", Top Dollar replied, rolling up a dollar bill between his fingers.

T-Bird continued with "I got problems of my own: one of my crew got himself perished. Or haven't you heard yet, boss?"  
"No, I've not heard yet, T. Who might that be?"  
"Tin-Tin", T-Bird answered, his gaze flickering to Myca's sultry form sprawling across the end of the table. "Somebody stuck all of his blades in all of his major organs in alphabetical order."

Now _this_ was surprising. Usually, the only deaths that happened like this were either of unknowing victims of the Devil's Night infernos or cocky gangbangers who didn't know how to keep themselves safe while setting them. But to have one of them murdered – that was different.

For now, though, Top Dollar kept it in the back of his mind as a warning to watch out for any similar occurrences. "Well, gentlemen, by all means, I think we oughta have an introspective moment of silence for poor ol' Tin-Tin", he said, punctuating it by leaning down over the cocaine tin and deeply drawing the line he'd cut up into his nose. "Gah…you're working for me tonight, right?"  
Now T-Bird's focus went back to his boss, his demeanor all business. "Whatever you say, I can do", he said, lifting his cigarette away from his lips.  
"Good, that's very reassuring", Top Dollar responded as Myca leaned an arm across one of the arms of his chair, he placing a steadying hand on her inner thigh. "I still haven't heard the story of why Gideon's place burned down. What is that, a natural catastrophe or an act of God or somethin'? Call it my need to know", he hinted. At this, Grange and T-Bird slowly turned away and headed back downstairs, leaving Top Dollar and Myca alone.  
Although he hoped that this would be the last of strange events to happen tonight, something in Top Dollar's gut told him that the night's peculiarity was only just beginning.

* * *

Slowly, keeping his head half-ducked against the ebbing downpour of the rain, Eric crouched on the metal fire escape that led up to Funboy's room. He'd managed to move around to the side of the building and jump up to the first flight, working his way up. Now all he had to do was wait.  
He closed his eyes and connected his mind with that of the crow – it had flown up to the open window to see Funboy and Darla laying on his bed, he helping her shoot a syringe into her arm while promising her, "Tomorrow night, we can get high and watch the whole fuckin' city burn through that window."

Taking each rung one at a time before reaching the balcony underneath the window, Eric began to sing under his breath.  
 _"_ _It's a Raymond Chandler evening, and the pavements are all wet…and I'm lurking in the shadows because it hasn't happened. Yet."_  
He closed his eyes to see through those of the crow again. Just as Funboy had finished talking and turning to Darla, spreading hot kisses down her neck to the plunging neckline of her lingerie, the crow had flown into the room to mount on a dresser next to the wall. It looked over at them, and it wasn't long until Darla noticed. "Hey…there's a big fuckin' bird over there", she said, her voice slurred from whatever she'd shot up. Funboy turned to see the bird, his eyes a light shade of yellow behind his pupils.  
"It's a squab!" he whispered melodramatically, earning a snicker from Darla. "Come here, birdy. Hey, bird. Bir-dy! Birdy birdy birdy birdy!" As Funboy began to mockingly call the bird, he failed to notice the human shape crouched in the window until it entered the room and stood to its feet.

"Here, Funboy", Eric's voice mocked, his shape materializing in the low light of the room, the bare light bulb that hung from the ceiling dangling low against his forehead. Eric had jumped up to the window and climbed through, his guitar held ready.  
"What the fuck?" Funboy slowly exclaimed as he saw Eric – painted face, wet black hair, and Tin-Tin's trenchcoat over his black clad body. Next moment, he was rushing toward them and lunging his arm upwards across his guitar—  
"Goddammit man, don't do that!" Funboy screamed, seeing Eric wasn't holding a thing in his outstretched hand. "You nearly gave me a fucking heart attack!" Darla chuckled softly at Eric's appearance, Funboy telling her "Don't sweat it."  
As Eric moved away to remove the guitar and hang it on a nearby coat hook, Funboy reached for his .357 and pointed it in Eric's direction. "It's time for you to take your bird and leave, freak-o."  
Speaking of the bird, Eric heard what the mystical creature though as he pulled up a chair and sat backwards in it, leaning against the backrest. "I'd shut your mouth if I were you, pain junkie. I've not asked you a thing...yet."

 _Track marks and yellow eyes, kid. But he doesn't have the grey teeth or the mottled skin. He's definitely a junkie though, probably morphine._

Funboy cocked the hammer of the Magnum back, ready to fire. Eric's response was merely a growing smile and a dangerous game – placing the palm of his hand flat against the barrel. "Take your shot, Funboy. You've got me dead-bang."  
Funboy's eyebrows rose at Eric's words, amazed at how insane Eric sounded. "You are seriously fucked up. Did you look in the mirror? You need professional help", he stated in a soft tone…before pulling the trigger.

The gun reported with a **BANG** , and Eric bolted from the chair holding his wounded hand with a series of painful screams as Funboy stood on the bed and cheered. "Yeah! He shoots, he scores!"  
Except Eric wasn't in any pain at all, the screams mocking before they turned into almost evil laughter. As it emanated from Eric's mouth, he peeked at Funboy through the bullet hole in his hand to taunt him further before looking back up as the bullet hole fully healed in a matter of seconds.

"Jesus Christ!"  
"Jesus Christ?" Eric repeated. "Stop me if you've heard this one. Jesus Christ walks into a hotel-"

 **BANG!** Another .357 round, this one to the abs. It made Eric recoil when it hit, but didn't stop him. "Ow", he stated before continuing his joke. "He hands the innkeeper three nails, and He asks-"

 **BANG!** A third gunshot to the leg, but it didn't even take him down. "Don't you ever fucking die!?" Funboy cried, readying the gun for another shot.  
As if he'd never been interrupted, Eric finished with an angry sneer, "'Can you put me up for the night!?'" Then he shot his arm out in a downward swing, sending Funboy's gun arm flying down, letting the readied bullet off and into his leg as a result. Funboy collapsed onto the bed with a yelp of pain, and Eric could see his heart beating fast against his skinny chest. As Eric gathered the gun, Darla took the time to slowly move away from the bed and retreat into the bathroom.

 _He's going into shock, kid. Make it quick._

"Oh, does that hurt?" Eric mocked.  
"Hurt! Fuck…does it hurt?" Funboy repeated, his voice thin. "Look…what you've done…to my sheets." And with a pathetic sigh, he passed out onto the bed. Eric tossed the gun onto the bed, feeling a flash of memory come on as he grabbed Funboy's ankle and dragged him off of the bed and across the floor.

 **Funboy mounting Shelly forcefully, lifting up his shirt to get a grip at the front of his pants, showing off his gun tattoo. "I've got another gun in my pocket, just for you, baby. You're happy to see me, aren't you!?"**

I certainly am, Eric thought sarcastically, and he lugged Funboy's inert body into the bathroom, then heaved him into the bathtub and turned the cold water on full blast. Considering how ratty and threadbare the apartment was, it was amazing that still worked.  
Then he turned to Darla, noticing a straight razor that she'd found earlier. It was this that she lashed out at Eric with. "Stay away from me! Stay away from me! No!" Gently grabbing her wrist, Eric tossed the straight razor aside and pulled her over to the mirror, his other hand tilting her head back so she had no choice but to look at herself.

 _Oy…well, kid, if you really want to do this, it's your own second funeral._

This was worth it anyway – for Sarah's own safety. Eric may have been seeking revenge for his beloved, but he wasn't letting Sarah suffer further either. Even as he felt some of the figurative iron leave his bones and blood, he managed to keep his composure.

"Look", Eric demanded, leaning in close to Darla's ear and honing in his focus as Darla trembled and sobbed. "Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children. Do you understand?" As Eric asked this, he felt the morphine she'd injected quickly move back down through her veins and out of the track marks in her arm, dripping onto the floor.  
"Morphine is bad for you", Eric finished, and as the drugs leaked out, Darla's panic slowly settled, her sobs quieting and her body regaining its calm center. She turned to look at Eric – to slap him, thank him, something. But she was too amazed and frightened to do anything else, even as Eric gently held her cheeks in his hands.  
"Go from this place, Darla, before he sucks all the light from your eyes", Eric requested. "Your daughter is out there on the streets waiting for you."  
Darla slowly backed away from Eric's form before quickly turning around and bolting out of the apartment, grabbing her clothes along the way. Eric, meanwhile, turned to the dresser beside the bathroom door and picked up a small syringe containing a clear fluid. It was indeed morphine – medical grade.

Eric was so busy contemplating on how much damage this had done that he hadn't heard Funboy come up behind him until it was too late.  
He let out an almighty cry of pain as Funboy slashed him across the back with the razor, and he reached back to feel blood beginning to lightly pour from it.  
"Fuckface", Funboy cried groggily, moving to the dresser and dipping his face into a kilo bag of cocaine, sniffing deeply and coming away with half his face coated in the white stuff.

Defend and survive, Eric thought. Defend and survive.

Funboy lunged at Eric with the razor again, cutting across Eric's arms as Eric held them up to defend himself before grabbing Funboy's cutting arm and holding it away. They struggled like that for a few terrifying seconds before Eric leaned back just enough to let Funboy smack his forehead against the hardwood of the nearby chair. The straight razor went clattering away to land beside the foot of the bed.  
Funboy and his fellows caused enough damage already – they wasn't doing any more to anyone else. As Eric thought this, he could feel the iron seep back into his body again. He tossed Funboy down to the floor and loomed over him, but Funboy lunged back, breaking an empty beer bottle hard across Eric's head. The impact sent Eric plunging down to the floor, his legs rearing after as Funboy cackled.

But just as quickly as that happened, Eric sprung back into a crouch and grabbed the razor, plunging it deeply into Funboy's abdomen, his cackles cutting off and morphing into a series of gasping moans of pain. Leaving Funboy to collapse on the floor, Eric stood up to grab another syringe from the ratty bedside table. He plunged it deeply into the morphine bottle still on the table and filled the syringe completely, and then brought it back with him to Funboy.  
"Dude…that's way too much. You're wasting it…God…this hurts…"  
"Your pain will end soon, you junkyard of meat and wire", Eric promised, holding the morphine syringe directly above Funboy's chest. "But first, your friends. T-Bird. Skank. _Where!?_ "  
Shaking his head as if to get rid of the pain, Funboy whispered up, "Something…is seriously wrong with you…"  
"Atrocity has that effect on me", Eric replied, the syringe descending an inch further toward skin. "Where are they?"  
"They…they always…grab their stuff…from the little convenience store across the way. That's…that's all I know…"  
"Thank you, kind soul." The devilish smile came back to play across Eric's lips as he spoke, especially as Funboy began to beg. "Get offa me, steamhead."  
The syringe came down lower toward Funboy's heart…

* * *

Grange had come up to Funboy's place to check on whatever the hell was going on in there. Quite a few things had tipped him off to it.  
After finding out that Gideon had made his way into the bar of Club Trash, Top Dollar had sent Grange downstairs to let him know that the two of them urgently needed to talk. He'd come down to find Gideon tossing away the ice from an empty cup and growling, "If I wanted ice, I'd have asked for ice! Now fill it up." The bartender had responded by slamming down the bottle of Crown Royal on the bar and saying, "Fill it up yourself, macho man."  
"Boy, I really needed this", Gideon chuckled sardonically, trying to open it with his wrapped hand. At that, Grange came around and set the bottle back down with a firm push, opening it and pouring Gideon half a glass before the man said, "Alright."

"Burn yourself playing with matches?" Grange asked.  
"Oh, fuck off."  
"You have an appointment."  
"Well, shit on me", Gideon responded, a dignified note of impression in his voice.  
"Drink up."  
"This is a first", Gideon noted. "Do I bow or do I curtsey?" Then he pointed to the bartender to request, "Get my friend here a glass of blood."

That was when the first unusual thing happened: Darla came running down the stairs, clad in her flimsy black nightgown, clothes in her hand, looking scared for her life as she pushed aside a fellow waitress on her way out the door. The bartender merely offered her a cheeky "Hey, good night…Darla" as a departing gift.  
Taking off his leather fedora, Grange slapped it down onto Gideon's head just as he tried to leave. "You just sit and wait right there", Grange ordered, taking out his specially made TMP and readying it as he ascended up the stairs.

Once he made it to Funboy's door, stopping only to shake a street bum awake and toss him out, Grange found it unusually quiet, a faint groan emanating from inside. A pair of white feet peeking out from behind the bed was the only indication of any human activity. Grange slowly pushed the door completely open with his gun, walking inside.

What he found was nerve-wracking to him, the second strange thing to happen with him tonight.

Funboy was lying beside the bed in a coma, a weird bird-like symbol painted across his chest in blood, a small handful of syringes injected directly into his heart. Only a faint groan managed to escape his lips, Grange knowing that he was near death.  
"…big…fugging…bird…"

Grange slowly looked up toward the window to see the third weird occurrence – a man crouched on the windowsill dressed in Tin-Tin's leather trenchcoat, his face white and eyes black – was that a spent bullet tied into his hair? – and holding a guitar and a finger up to his lips before he fell backwards out the window. Grange moved to the window to see where he went, but it was as if the man had never existed in the first place.

The only thing that seemed out of place now was a big black crow flying away into the darkening night.


	7. Part 3-2: Irony-In Memoriam

Looking out into the darkening night from a window of his own, Albrecht trekked around his apartment and took a swig from his opened beer, his desk almost completely buried under files and photographs. One of them, a publicity shot of the local band Hangman's Joke, was lying on the coffee table. It had been doodled on – the face of Eric Draven was colored in with white, black over the eyes and mouth.

* * *

Annie Coopersmith, a sweet young black woman with short hair, dedicated to her job, had caught him at it shortly after she'd brought him the files of Eric Draven and Shelly Webster. He'd been sitting at his desk, thinking about his earlier encounter with the strange man.  
"Don't thank me", she'd said as she delivered the files. "Are we fighting the good fight?"  
Albrecht flashed her a gentle smile before his face returned to a somber mask. "Double homicide a year ago. No convictions. And Annie, look at that", he'd said, pointing to a sheet of paper.  
"'We, the undersigned tenants of 1929 Calderon Court Apartments…' What's this, a petition?"  
Nodding, Albrecht clarified, "A big 'kick-me' sign for a very nice girl who found herself a cause…that cause got her killed."  
"She was fighting tenant eviction in that neighborhood?" Annie had asked with wide eyes. Even freshly hired onto the force, she had a good idea about how rough that neighborhood was.  
"She being Shelly Webster, and her nice rock-and-roll boyfriend, Eric Draven."  
"You know", Annie pointed out, "the last time you went snooping around on a case is when you got put back on the beat, Albrecht."  
"Yeah, I know", Albrecht had answered rather moodily, starting to doodle on the publicity photo. "Torres keeps reminding me."  
"Oh, I imagine he does…" Annie's voice drifted off as she noticed Albrecht's doodling of the Irony mask on Eric's face. "And at this rate, you're gonna wind up working a school crosswalk."  
Albrecht had merely answered with a sly grin and a wink. "I'm cool."  
Annie shook her head. "You didn't get that file from me, ok? And don't tell me you owe me one", she playfully demanded as she walked away from his desk.  
"Uh…I owe you one", he'd said anyway, catching a hint of her charming smile as a response. Then he looked at the picture he'd colored on – noticing Eric's face perfectly matching the face of the person he'd seen earlier. "Damn!"

* * *

Later, right as he'd been told his desk shift was over, Albrecht had taken the files and pictures home to study them. He had to see if there was anything unusual about what he'd seen back then – if one or the other had somehow faked their deaths by striking a deal, using a mannequin, something…but looking over the files and what they said, there was nothing at all unusual about the documented events from a year ago. So how had-?

Suddenly he heard a news report flash onto the TV – he'd forgotten he'd turned it on when he got back. "As you can see, I'm here on the corner of 27th Street and East Washington Place, the site of last year's biggest Devil's Night conflagration. It was exactly one year ago – "  
Something was wrong. Albrecht could feel it like the hairs prickling up on the back of his neck. Following his gut, he ran into his bedroom expecting to find something, but it was empty. The only thing different was the open bedroom window. But how-?

"FREEZE!"

The cry made Albrecht jump a mile, his beer bottle clattering to the floor as he caught his breath, and turning to face the crier. It was him again – long dark hair, leather trenchcoat, painted face, and what looked like electrical tape wrapped around his palms, down his arms beneath the leather, and around his stomach. Albrecht also noted that around Eric's neck was a leather thong on which hung a gold-plated engagement ring with a small diamond in its center.

"Jesus…don't ever do that, man!" Albrecht ordered.

Giving him a shrug, Eric came to the coffee table and bent down to pick up the photograph Albrecht colored in. "Good likeness", Eric commended him.

"You…I saw your body, man. You died; you got buried!" Albrecht spoke as Eric looked into Albrecht's bedroom at the files. But as Albrecht finished, Eric turned around to face him.  
"You still have your hat on."  
Did he? Albrecht rose up a hand to confirm that before taking it off, and suddenly he felt a touch subconscious that he was facing this guy in only a t-shirt and boxers. That feeling died quickly with all the questions that flooded his brain. Through this, he barely noticed Eric departing into the adjacent kitchen and returning with another beer. "Say, a-are you some kinda…ghost?"

"Boo!" Eric replied facetiously, twisting the bottle cap off and handing Albrecht the beer. Then he slowly fell back to seriousness, leaning himself down into a chair at the corner of the table. "I don't know what I am", Eric answered honestly. "I need you to tell me what happened to us."  
Ignoring his judgment, Albrecht went with his instinct again and decided to do as Eric asked. He didn't know of anything else he could do. "Well, you took a six-story dive out of the window. She, uhm…was beaten and raped, died at the hospital."  
Eric winced, his eyes growing wide with terror and anger. He'd had a sinking feeling that that was ultimately what happened, but fresh rage washed over him again at hearing again what had happened.  
"Hey, come on. Read the file", Albrecht told him, going into his bedroom to grab it. "Shelly Webster held on for thirty hours in the ICU, and then her body finally just gave it up. I couldn't do jack for her, man." He offered Eric the file to see for himself. Instead, Eric rose from his chair and approached Albrecht, his hands outstretched.  
Albrecht took a step back, but Eric managed to reach his temples –

 **-the palpable atmosphere of anxiety and fear as doctors and nurses worked feverishly at the battered and ruined body of Shelly, applying an IV, AED paddles, watching her heartbeat slowly give way, her outstretched hand slowly dropping to her side, the anguish and pain through Albrecht's eyes seeping into every fiber of his soul –**

Eric backed away, tremors rocking every bone in his body as if he were falling under the trance of a seizure. He collapsed against the chair, cupping his head with his fingers digging into his dark locks. "Don't touch me!" he screamed, pushing the chair away as he fell completely onto the floor.  
"Hey…you ok?" Albrecht asked.

"I saw her", Eric sobbed. He looked up at Albrecht with wide eyes, tears at the edges. "I saw her through your eyes." His tone was one of surprise and gratitude. "You stayed with her the whole time."

"Yeah, well..." Albrecht started, unsure of what to say at first as he sat down on the corner of the table, taking out a cigarette. "You've gotta understand something, alright? I was…hoping she'd come out of it, you know? Give me something I could work with." He lit the cigarette with a sigh as Eric's face looked back into his, half-stony and half-devastated.

"Why didn't you do something about it?"  
"Hey, come on, man." Albrecht said. "You think any of those people in that building – even the ones who signed the petition – would talk after what happened to you? I mean, I kept asking questions and…" He let out a dejected sigh as he finished, "I finally got busted for sticking my nose where it wasn't wanted."

Eric nodded slowly, understanding that there was nothing else Albrecht could've done. But this made him beg the question: what could he, Eric, have done to help make things better? Sure, vengeance on the gang that killed him was a start, but maybe he was inflicting it a bit too late. He didn't know, and at this point, not knowing was killing him.

He noticed a picture sitting on the coffee table – Albrecht and a lovely young woman, her eyes locked onto Albrecht but her body slightly turned away from his. "This your wife?" Eric asked.  
"Yeah. We…well, not anymore", Albrecht confessed. "We're getting a divorce. All this…well, kinda proved to be too much for her."  
Eric nodded lightly, his gaze seeming to fade inward. "It's funny…little things used to mean so much to Shelly. I used to think they were kind of trivial." Then his gaze sharpened, seeming to bury itself deep into Albrecht's soul and start to light a distant fire inside. "Believe me, nothing is trivial", Eric finished. Then he reached up and snagged the cigarette from Albrecht's mouth. He took a drag from it, holding it up with a rueful look on his face as he let out a shaky breath. "You shouldn't smoke these", he said with a light, half-forced chuckle. "They'll kill you."

Then, slowly, Eric rose to his feet and moved toward the back of the room toward the hall that let into the apartment. Albrecht kept a close eye on him as he did so. "You gonna vanish into thin air again?" Albrecht asked.  
Eric slowly turned his head back to Albrecht, his eyes glistening with restrained tears and his voice barely composed. He kept his arms crossed tightly across his ribs as if he were physically holding his body together. "I thought I'd use your front door", he said, his voice quiet and soft.  
Albrecht nodded before saying, "Listen, man…I'm sorry as hell for what happened with you and your girlfriend.  
Eric looked at him sadly. "Yeah", he whispered, unable to say anything else, his mind lost in the memories of Shelly as he departed through Albrecht's front door, leaving Albrecht alone.  
"Yeah."

* * *

"I got stabbed!"  
Top Dollar paced impatiently across the room, separated from Gideon and his angry ranting by the long table on which Myca lounged almost lazily. Just behind Gideon's form lurked Grange, fiddling lightly with a jointed finger-cuff on his pinky. This wasn't exactly the best point of their evening, but they had to listen if they truly wanted to know who – or what – they were up against.  
"I shot the son of a bitch!" Gideon continued to cry. "I watched the bullet hole close by itself, and then my business gets blown up real good." His gaze turned to Myca, finishing, "Other than that, my day sucked."  
Shaking his head, Grange looked up at his boss and followed up with, "I saw him too, Top. He had a guitar. And he winked at me before he jumped out of Funboy's fourth-floor window like he had wings. I look outside – nothing."  
"He winked at you?" Top Dollar repeated, his eyebrows raising as he himself shook his head. "Tsk…musicians."

Gideon, however, wasn't going to be kept waiting patiently for long. "So far I haven't heard shit about what you're all gonna do about all this crap. I mean, what do I get? My livelihood flushed away and going swirling, that's what I get."  
Top Dollar had just about had enough of this hog's grunting. He leaned across the table to look Gideon straight in the eye, saying as calmly as he could, "You haven't lost everything, Gideon."  
"Yeah, and maybe you're not such a big shot either!" Gideon shouted, standing to return his gaze before Grange forced him back down, squeezing his shoulder tight. "Ow! Jesus!"  
"Fair enough", Top Dollar conceded with a shrug before lazily tossing something to Gideon. "Catch."  
Gideon followed his orders instinctively before looking down and dropping what he'd caught in abject horror. Top Dollar, however, kept his cool. "Say hello to the last fella who wouldn't cooperate with me", he asked.

His gaze moving between the ripped-out human eye and the person who'd tossed it to him, Gideon could barely get his words out. "You're telling me…you're telling me this thing's real!?"  
"All the power in the world resides in the eyes, fella", Top Dollar lectured, turning his back on Gideon to walk over to a sword case hidden behind a secret door. As he withdrew a long cutlass, he continued meaningfully, "Sometimes they're more useful than the people who bear them."  
"You're directly outta your fuckin' mind! You know that!?"  
All but ignoring Gideon's fearful cry, Top Dollar walked back toward him, flashing the cutlass at him from across the room. "Yeah. Eyes see. One of the most important things I learned from my sister", he said, raising his eyebrows toward Myca, who flashed him the barest hint of a seductive smile.  
"Your sister?" Gideon asked surprisingly, looking at Myca and Top Dollar in turn, unable to contain a few chuckles. "She's supposed to be your sister?"  
"My father's daughter", Top Dollar answered seriously, stepping closer. "That's right. What's the matter, you don't see the resemblance?" Taking a classic swordsman's stance, he held the tip of his sword up against Gideon's bobbing Adam's apple while Myca pressed one high-heeled foot against Gideon's shoulder and Grange pressed his hands down on both shoulders. They had him trapped.

"Now, let's take it from the top, friend. With a lot of detail – what do you say?"

Shaking fearfully, his gaze flickering, Gideon managed to eke out an answer to Top Dollar's threat. "He had a bird with him – nearly pecked my face off! He told me to tell T-Bird that…that death was on its way, whatever the fuck that means." He took a moment to let in and out a shaky breath, fidgeting a bit. "Draven. He said his name was Eric Draven." His gaze focused on Top Dollar's blade. "Want to relax that thing now?"

Top Dollar did so, walking away from his prisoner for a few steps. "And this…bird man…he just happened to let you live, hm?" He looked back at Gideon, his voice dropping to a growl. "You sure you ain't makin' all of this up just to save your own ass?  
Now he'd gotten Gideon angry. "I ain't making all this up", he growled back in return, his voice rising to its old gruff tone. "I ain't twisted like you two fucks!"  
Slowly, Myca removed her foot from Gideon's shoulder, and Grange removed his hands after Top Dollar told him it was all right to do so. "A boy and his bird…awful touching", Top Dollar commented sarcastically.  
Gideon let out a laugh, and Top Dollar cracked a smile in return.

Then, as fast as a whip cracking, he spun on his heels and thrust the sword deeply through Gideon's throat, the blade coming out bloody on the other side of the thick skin, pinning Gideon to the chair as he convulsed wildly. The sounds of him choking to death on his own blood rang morbidly through the room.  
"Oh, for fuck's sake, die, will ya!" Top Dollar ordered as if he were a work force boss disappointed at his workers not moving fast enough. Holding out a hand to Grange, he said, "Gimme that thing."  
Grange complied and handed over his custom TMP, which Top Dollar aimed at Gideon's writhing form and fired a couple of shots, the twin explosions quieting everything else out as the slugs tore into Gideon's chest and stomach, putting him out of his misery.

"Thanks", Top Dollar said, handing the gun back. Holstering it as Myca went over to Top Dollar and held him closely, Grange reported, "Funboy said he saw a big black bird too. Then he choked to death on his own blood after being shot full of enough morphine to kill an elephant."  
Top Dollar nodded before his gaze moved back to Myca – Grange's signal to leave. "I'll have the janitor come on up", he stated, leaving the private murder scene.


	8. Part 3-3: Irony-Steel Tide-Asphalt Beach

Part 3.3 - Irony: Steel Tide On An Asphalt Beach

The sharp, ringing guitar notes rang out through the dark night, echoing off of the foreboding and crumbling brick edifices. The amplifier that let them ring from Eric's scarlet guitar hung precariously from the small deck above Eric's loft, Gabriel nestled in the window of said loft, eating peacefully from a tin of cat food.

The solo that he played was slow yet loud, a neo-electric and romantic version of a snake charmer's tune, yet Eric played with every bit of skill he could muster from his broken heart. If one were to come across him and listen closely, it would have sounded as though Eric was playing for the sole purpose of attempting to lure his beloved Shelly back to the land of the living, just so he could take in every freckle of her face, every tone of her voice, every contour of her body as he held her, all for one last time.  
Looking over as he continued to finger the metal strings, he gave a nod to the bird of prey mounted next to him, and the crow took off toward its next destination: checking on Sarah at her place before Eric went to get the last two criminal scum that took his love away.

* * *

Channeling his mind to connect with the crow's, he saw Sarah through the crow's eyes, hearing what it heard – music from his old band Hangman's Joke. Sarah had found their vinyl album and skipped to his most favorite song, 'Fire in the Rain'.

 _It can't rain all the time  
The sky won't fall forever  
And though the night seems long  
Your tears won't fall forever…_

"You again!" Sarah noticed the crow at her window as it softly cawed at her. Eric could see Sarah come closer. "You lost? Or hungry?" Sarah nestled closer. The crow only returned her gaze with its own, wide-eyes, brown, and naturally reproachful.  
"Hi", she said as she nestled on the couch beside the window, just as the vinyl got stuck on the first line of the chorus. The crow, and Eric, saw Sarah turn to the now-stuck record player, and Eric could almost feel her curiosity grow as much as she could.

 _It can't rain all the time – can't rain all the time – can't rain all the time – can't rain all the time…_

* * *

At that moment, with a rustle of feathers, the bird took wing once again. It soared over the rooftops toward where Eric was sure to follow – the corner store where T-Bird and Skank were beginning to approach, T-Bird's car parked just across the street.  
Eric slowly put his guitar down before he ran across the rooftops, vaulting his strong body over the long gaps between each structure, his trenchcoat flowing behind him like his pet bird's wings, the cold wind unable to be felt against his stomach from the electrical tape wrapped around there tightly. For all the concentration he kept on the industrial obstacle course ahead, he kept his mind attuned to the crow's.

* * *

"You know how long it took us to put this together, Skank!"  
"Yah, a luhng tahm", Skank replied in his mush-mouthed voice.  
"And we've gotta be careful – that piece of ratshit made Tin-Tin into a fuckin' voodoo doll!" T-Bird warned his companion.  
"Ah, Tin-Tin wuhs a dick!" Skank shrugged before he stopped behind his friend, T-Bird turning around quickly before they both thrust up their arms and let out a chorus of "Fire it up!"  
After it was over, they approached the door, T-Bird looking around. "Huh. No Funboy."  
"Pro'lly still…bangin' away on Darla!" Skank prodded, grabbing a dilapidated parking meter and crudely bumping and grinding against it, grunting rhythmically before T-Bird's whistle to attention cut him off. He signaled toward the corner store, ordering, "Smokes and road beers. Be quick."  
Skank looked toward the window before confirming, "Ah'm on it", and walking inside. T-Bird took the time to start lighting a cigarette as he stepped into the driver's seat of his car. He only looked up to see the sleek black creature land on his hood and look him directly in the eyes.

What he didn't know was that Eric had made it shortly after T-Bird and Skank made it to the corner, taking his time to hide inside the jacked-up car as they chanted their chorus. At least, T-Bird didn't know it until he saw the murderous fowl mount atop his hood before Eric rose from the backseat, a .44 Magnum pointed squarely at T-Bird's forehead as he turned with his own Beretta in his hand.

Not fast enough.

"What the fuck are you supposed to be, man?" T-Bird asked, managing to keep his voice together.  
"I'm your passenger", Eric replied, taking T-Bird's cigarette out of his mouth and dropping it, then his gun by its barrel and, checking that the safety was still on, tossed it onto the floor of the back seat. Finally, he gave one simple order.  
"Drive."

He knew he'd be leaving Skank by himself, but T-Bird had no other choice. He turned the ignition and stomped on the gas pedal, the car roaring away as Skank looked on from inside the store, his mouth full of potato chips.

* * *

Skank began to run after them before a small hatchback hit him square in the thigh, sending him sprawling onto the hood. His weight managed to shatter the windshield before he rolled off and landed on the wet pavement. Just before he could get up, however, the driver helped him. "What the fuck's the matter with you, you stupid ass-hair!? You hit my car!" he screamed, smacking Skank across the face. Skank's response was to hit him back with a closed fist, effectively knocking him out. He hit the ground just as Skank limped into the car and shut the door, flooring it and driving after T-Bird.

* * *

Meanwhile, T-Bird was having problems of his own – his usual methods of negotiation weren't having any effect on his surprise passenger. "Alright, what do you want, man? You want money, drugs? I got 'em." No answer. T-Bird tried a different, more flattering tack. "I mean, we could use you – you did Tin-Tin", he said with a nervous chuckle. "It's business, right?"  
Eric's response was to cock the Beretta's hammer back and say, "Faster." T-Bird complied, his boot riding heavier on the gas until the speedometer gauge clocked in 90 miles an hour, Skank lagging far behind in his stolen hatchback.  
If the atmosphere inside the car had become laced with static, the charge inside soon grew to become a veritable power station as T-Bird noticed the flashing reds and blues of a police car tailing after them, separating them from Skank. T-Bird's gaze flashed to the speedometer, noting their pace. "Oh, look", he said. "You're makin' us popular. When they flash us like that, they ain't friends, you know."

The automobiles rocketed through the dark streets and shadowy alleys in turn, the blaring klaxon of the police car resonating off of the narrow brick as its driver called for backup. Rubber screeched and motors thrummed like the growling of a buffalo stampede, the alleys filling up with exhaust from the two fastest automobiles as the chase went on.  
T-Bird tried his damndest to keep his voice under control as nervous adrenaline flushed through his system, his gaze wavering between the roads ahead and the barrel of his passenger's gun. "If you got something personal, amigo, we can work it out, right?"  
But Eric looked back to see the police car, still without backup, tailing them a car's length behind but still keeping up. "Tell me something, speed demon. Do you know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  
"Wuh…what?" T-Bird stuttered, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel's leather grip. "I…I don't-"  
"It depends on the tune", Eric shrugged hopelessly.

* * *

Farther back, the tiny hatchback was barely able to keep pace with its two more modern leaders, Skank letting out befuddled noises of worry with every turn. Even the dwellers on the highest floor would've been able to hear the screech of the hatchback's tires followed by Skank's cry of "Damn dead end!" His beatings on the shattered windshield, a vain attempt at completely breaking it out, only served to make it creak and break more. To make matters worse, he tried to crank down the window in a last shot of clear sight, but he only succeeded in breaking off the crank. "Holy shit! Goddamn foreign cars!" Skank managed to turn around kitty-cornered from the alley and speed away from it, taking a sharp turn that tilted the car onto its right side wheels before it eventually righted itself, the roof scraping against the brick side of the alley.  
Shaking his head, Skank fretted, "Oh, I hate this. This ain't good…" Then he spotted a familiar silhouette speeding by the exit of his alley. "T-Bird!" he cried excitedly. "I gotcha, man! I'm coming!" But just as he exited the alley, the entire right side of the car seemed to collapse in on him as the police car broadsided the hatchback. The impact was enough to startle Skank completely out of the car, the door flying open before he collapsed with a yelp of pain onto the pavement.

* * *

The Thunderbird sped away from them, keeping on the straightaway until the oily pavement and rotting planks of the local pier came into view, the murky depths of a lake bordering its other side. "'Behold the night, offering the key that opens wide her gates of Horn…'" Eric quoted. "Stop the car."  
T-Bird didn't need to be told twice, taking his boot off of the gas pedal and slamming it onto the brake. With a screech of tires and the scent of smoking rubber, the car finally came to a complete stop. T-Bird reached up to flick off the ignition before wisely placing his hands back on the wheel and keeping calm, lest he receive a fresh serving of .44 caliber metal to the brainpan. "So…you really are the guy who did in Tin-Tin, huh?" he asked rhetorically. "It doesn't seem like Funboy's saying much either. So what do you want from me then?

Methodically, Eric set to work. He picked up a near-full roll of duct tape and a couple of bungee cords from off of the floor and wound the cords around T-Bird's ankle, binding it tight to the gas pedal. Then he began to speak as he unwound the duct tape, tightly binding the barely-struggling form of T-Bird to the driver's seat. "I want you to tell me something, speed demon. Do you remember a loft, a man and a woman you helped kill? Say, a year ago, hmm?" He delivered the last with a sarcastic tone, tossing the empty roll of tape aside before popping the trunk to expose the plethora of explosives and weapons therein. He leafed through T-Bird's leather jacket to obtain his favorite lighter before he moved around to the back of the car.  
"Remember?" T-Bird shuddered. "Yeah, I remember everything, but I don't know wha-what you're talking about." Then, in a flash, it came to him – the hot little number he and his friends had played with in that loft this time last year. "No no no no, you mean that place downtown? Yeah, I remember her. We needed to put some fear in that little lady – she wasn't going along with our tenant relocation program", he said, adding a nervous laugh to the last three words.  
Eric grimaced with ugly rage as he readied a bundle of plastic explosive, setting the timer for two minutes from then. With his free hand, he grabbed a white phosphorus grenade and a portable bottle of some extremely flammable fluid.  
A memory from T-Bird flashed through his brain-

 **Earlier that night, back at Arcade Games, T-Bird flourishing a similar bottle in the face of his female hostage. His voice that of a snake-oil salesman, a smile on his ratty, bearded face. "Uncle T-Bird's 100-proof accelerator. I squirt you with this, and you could jump into the Detroit River and burn all the way to the bottom."**

\- and then Eric decided it'd be perfect for his own needs. But he wouldn't be burning his prey this way.

He heard T-Bird continuing to babble as he came back to the front of the car. "Then her idiot boyfriend shows up and turns a simple sweep-and-clear into a total clusterfuck! Who gives a shit? It's ancient history!"  
Eric looked down at his prey, T-Bird's words rising to a frightened fever pitch. "Why!? Whaddaya want!? What is it – what!? Speak to me! Speak!" Then he got a good look at Eric's face for the first time, even as Eric tore away some more duct tape from a new roll  
From that look, another memory came back to Eric –

 **The gang breaking into their loft, Shelly screaming with fright. "Department of Housing! Did you send us these complaints?"  
A flash to T-Bird dragging Shelly to the back corner of the room by her hair before tossing her aside, digging out the book. "'Abash, the devil stood…'"  
Another flash, T-Bird holding the book open as the smile of the devil came across his face. "Does it get you sweaty, baby?"**

-and he came back to Earth as soon as T-Bird did.

"I know you", T-Bird said incredulously. "I know you – I knew I knew you", he chuckled. Then his voice began to take on a frightened tone again, almost sobbing with dread. "But you ain't you. You can't be you; we put you through the window. There ain't no comin' back!"

Eric had decided he'd had enough as he tilted T-Bird head back against the seat's headrest, duct-taping it there so that he'd be forced to keep his eyes open the whole way for his one-way ride to Hell. Ignoring T-Bird's near sobs of "There ain't no comin' back!", he flipped the ignition on and pinned T-Bird's foot down to the floor against the pedal.  
"'Abash, the devil stood, and felt how awful goodness is…and felt how awful goodness is…'" With T-Bird's voice strained with fear to an unprecedented – almost insane – degree, Eric let himself crack a devilish smile as he pulled the pin from the grenade and tossed it between T-Bird's legs, and then reached over to the gearshift to set it to drive.  
Immediately, the car screeched away, Eric lifting his hand in a creepy two-fingered wave – a farewell that held special ironic delight for him. He looked off to the side to see a limping shadow cry T-Bird's name, a slur in his voice. Skank, Eric thought. Who else would it be, so concerned to observe the scene where his best friend finally burned out.

Eric turned his gaze back to the speeding car as it careened off from the peer before it suddenly burst into an explosive white cloud, parts of the car flying away from the site before the incinerated hulk of the lot hit the water with an almighty splash. The deep, rumbling sound of the explosion rumbled off of the glassy surface of the water and the dilapidated remains of the pier and surrounding buildings. Yet, even as the hulk began to drown, the flames refused to snuff out and somehow managed to linger on the surface of the lake as the car drowned and left them behind.  
One final touch to the night – Eric squirted the accelerated lighter fluid widely across the concrete pier in what seemed like a random pattern, bringing it back into his starting stance before flicking the lighter and tossing it to the ground, The flames grew across the pattern Eric laid down with the fluid until they finally closed up in the symbol of a giant crow. He took a moment to appreciate the view of his symbol, in all of its morbid and flickering beauty, before he began to walk away, the murderous fowl perching ominously on his shoulder.

Skank could wait another night. This one was over.


	9. Part 3-4: Irony-Interlude in Flight

Part 3.4 - Irony: Interlude In Flight

Sarah had fallen asleep on the couch in the apartment's small living room, clutching Eric's album in her hands like a well-loved security blanket. What woke her wasn't the sound of the morning news talking about the possible upcoming Devil's Night infernos as well as those from last year, but it was the smell of cooking food.  
She rolled off of the couch onto her feet and rubbed her eyes to see her mother, clad in a fresh white robe, busy over the stove cooking eggs. When she noticed that Sarah was up, she offered the best loving smile she could, and Sarah realized that her gaze, though tired, was sharp and focused.

"You like 'em up or over?" Darla asked. "I can't remember."  
"What are you doing?" Sarah asked in return as she walked into the kitchen, sitting down at the tiny table. "I don't even like eggs."  
"Wait…you loved eggs", Darla stated, a touch hesitantly.  
"Yeah, when I was five."  
"So", Darla stated, "What do you want instead – black coffee and cigarettes?" Was that humor she was trying to put into her voice? This was really weird.  
Sarah told her mother as much before asking, "What'd you take to become Mother Of The Year?"

At this, she could see some apprehension flash in Darla's eyes and her smile drop slightly as she responded, "Oh…it wasn't drugs. Someone kinda woke me up."  
"Who?" Sarah asked, even though she had a feeling that she knew already.  
It was as if Darla was trying to decide whether or not to answer, and how, before finally stating, "It was nuts" with a shrug.  
"Seriously, you're acting really weird", Sarah said again. "Did you win the lottery or something, Darla?"  
Darla looked back at Sarah, a genuinely saddened look on her face – a look that Sarah hadn't seen there in a long time. Immediately, Sarah felt a stab of shame at seeing the harsh effect her words were starting to have on Darla – her mother again? She wouldn't go that far yet, but she was genuinely trying to be, and Sarah couldn't fault her for that.  
"Oh, just forget it", Darla sighed sadly, moving to the trashcan. "I never was good at this mommy shit."

"Overeasy!"  
Sarah had bolted up from her chair, gently grabbing her shoulder to stop her from dumping the readied food into the plastic can. Their eyes met again.  
"I like them overeasy…Mom."  
Her mother's smile came back, and Sarah was finally starting to remember just how bright that smile really was. Her mother flipped the eggs over in the pan, and with the chuckle between them that followed; the atmosphere inside seemed almost as bright as the sun that shone through the windows.

* * *

That bright mood seemed to infect Albrecht as well – he was just leaving his office and ready to hit his beat, a smile on his face that hadn't been there for a very long time. The sun was out and it seemed the dangers of Devil's Night were subsiding. Life was good.  
At least, until Torres seemed to decide that he needed to make it worse. "Hey, Albrecht."  
With a sigh, Albrecht lifted a hand to gently rub his eyes before stopping at the doorway of Torres' cramped office, the desk buried under mounds of papers and a computer at the corner. Another file was held out to him in Torres' hand, the photos of the roasted hulk of a car and its driver on top.  
"That's the third hit on your beat in 24 hours. We just fished this out of the river – he's fused to his own car. We're gonna have to ID his teeth."  
Albrecht looked down at the photos, the melted face of the driver frozen in a permanent yawn, the blackened shades of his skin scorched into the ruined leather of the car's interior. But even without looking at him, Albrecht knew who this driver was.  
"His name's T-Bird; arson was his specialty", Albrecht stated, unable to keep a chuckle from permeating his voice. "Looks like he zigged when he should've zagged. Case closed."  
Snatching the file away from him with his usual testy expression, Torres gave Albrecht a look that would've burned through other cops. "Bull-fuckin'-shit! Come here." They walked into Torres' office proper, he sitting down on the desk while Albrecht leaned against the window.

"You're holding out on me", Torres affirmed. "I've got a goddamned vigilante killer knocking off these scumbags left and right, and you're covering up for somebody! Who's the cartoon character with the painted face?"  
Albrecht had a feeling that someone else would've seen Eric too, so he didn't let himself be that surprised. There had been quite a few cops who'd followed Albrecht to Gideon's when he found Eric, so it was only reasonable. Still, he wasn't going to let Torres just have this one. "Hey, you're the detective. Why don't you tell me?"  
"Okay", Torres nodded, his voice rising a decibel. "Gideon's blows all to hell and you're having a chitchat with some weirdo who winds up in T-Bird's car when it 'zigs instead of zags'. Then you steal one of my case files from homicide, and you're saying this is just a fuckin' automobile accident!? Come on!" he finished, smacking the desk in frustration.

"Yeah", Albrecht confirmed, not even blinking at Torres snapping at him. He had to admit, it was fun seeing Torres worked up like this because he wasn't getting all the answers. So much for him putting Albrecht back on the beat. "Good speech though. I didn't want to interrupt ya; it sounded good. You gotta write that shit down."  
His face seeming to withdraw with simmering rage, Torres' voice went down to his usual sneer as he moved around to his desk chair, his eyes locked onto Albrecht's. "Alright, smartass. The Captain's got a little love note waiting for you. Welcome to the first day of the rest of your suspension."

Now Albrecht's calm façade cracked to be replaced with an undignified expression. "Suspension? For what!?"  
"Misconduct", Torres replied, returning the sarcasm Albrecht had previously given him. Then, he reached for the phone to call the lab, dismissing Albrecht as if he'd never been there in the first place. Throwing up his hands in frustration, Albrecht decided not to press the point.

Besides, seeing Torres like that was worth it – it was about time that someone around here took their job to serve and protect seriously. Albrecht still felt as though it wasn't the right thing to do to cover up for Eric even as he was killing people, but he also felt it was the best thing to do considering that those bad actions were being committed for a good reason. And if he had to undergo suspension for it – even though the reason of misconduct was at least half-bullshit – then so be it.  
In his eyes, Albrecht saw those gang members' deaths as a way for the inner city to get start over, like a phoenix reborn from the ashes. He wasn't happy about the deaths by any means, but he highly doubted that anyone was going to shed any tears because of who suffered them.

Albrecht grabbed his coat and headed for the captain's office, ready for what his real boss, not some rat-faced sneering detective, would have to say on the matter. Whatever was said, it had to be better than this.

* * *

Looking around to make sure there weren't any cops patrolling the streets, Sarah stopped in front of the old derelict apartment complex and leaned her skateboard against the wall. She let herself take a moment to look up at the broken window of the loft where Eric and Shelly lived, the memories coming back to her again. It was almost as if she were expecting either Eric or Shelly to lean down and come get her.  
Unable to keep the memories away, but remembering that wouldn't happen again, Sarah slowly pulled one of the wooden planks away from the boarded-up door of the building, then ducked under another as she went in and up the stairs, her boots crunching against old trash – cans, newspapers, general rubbish.

Up above in the loft, Eric was going through a memory rush of his own, even as Gabriel softly prowled around the apartment. And yet, the memory flashes seemed to take more time than they had before. Maybe Eric was finally getting some control over them, or maybe it was because his concentration was solely on those memories even as he took the physical remnants of them and tossed them into the lit fireplace – pictures of him and Shelly, an old letter that he'd written to her while he was on the road –

 **Eric sitting on the floor of their apartment, one leg tucked underneath him as he picked away at his old guitar, the notes matching those he'd played just last night. Shelly slowly coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "That song for me, rock star?" Smiling, looking up at her and kissing her neck, whispering, "Only for you, baby."**

\- The voice of the crow came into his head, stealing him away from the memories for a split second.

 _Come on, kid. You really need to see this again? It's only gonna hurt you worse._

"Go away, bird", Eric whispered, his mind focusing on the memories again as an attempt to shut the bird out.

 **Wrapping Shelly tightly in his arms, spinning her up in the air, her giggles music to his ears in the flowery field they stood in just outside the city.  
Standing together, their arms wrapped around each other in their bedroom, lost in each other as well.  
The sun floating gently through the bedroom window as Eric softly ran the backs of his fingers against Shelly's warm, soft cheek, his eyes locked onto her sleeping form as she came awake with a gentle smile at his touch.**

The tears slowly dripped down Eric's painted face as he finally disposed of the last of the memories, tearing off half of a picture of him and Shelly and tossing it away before putting the half with Shelly in a pocket. Then, a soft, rhythmic thumping just down the hall broke the sorrowful reverie. Someone was coming.  
Eric sprang to his feet and ran for the window, grabbing the beam of the frame that was still intact and swinging himself up and away from it, his body arcing around in a flip before his hands found the railing of the raised roof of his loft. He heaved himself up with only a bare grunt of effort, sitting cross-legged on top of it as the crow soared up behind him and perched on the railing, looking at him.

 _It's gotta be Sarah, kid. Why hide from her? She's gonna end up actually seeing you soon enough._

"I can't handle it right now, bird."

 _Come on. I've watched you slit the throats of three of the asswipes who killed you – turn one guy into a knife piñata, flooding another with morphine, killing the third with his own car and fireworks! Sure, we're having fun, but to what end?_

Even the sky seemed to cry as well, rain beginning to gently come down from the bright grey clouds above. Eric finally managed to look up at the bird, his voice a trembling whisper as the rain hit his skin. "Revenge? Justice? Both?" He scoffed, finishing, "No matter how fine the play, the last act is always bloody."

 _We ain't even at the last act yet, kid. All of this is just intermission. But have you ever considered that maybe this is all about something else besides just revenge or justice? I know you're here for that revenge, and the justice has followed, but maybe it's not just them that you're potentially here for, you know?_

"Eric?" His eyes widening, Eric could hear Sarah calling for him from inside the loft. Even with her voice at a whisper, he could still hear her every word. "Man, Sarah, relax. You're going crazy." Then a soft mewl followed her words, and her reaction made him smile, despite himself. "Gabriel! I thought you were dead. You're not dead, are you?" he heard her finish with a playful tone.

"What's this all about then, bird? If it's not just about justice or revenge – which you've told me it is about…"

 _That's true, kid, I have._

"Then what else could it be?"

Eric heard a small amount of shuffling from within the loft – Sarah must've found the remnants of his memento mori – the only remnants of his dead angel. "I knew it was you", Sarah called out. "Even with the makeup. I mean, I remembered your song. You said 'It can't rain all the time.' That is from your song, isn't it?"

Then the crow, as if answering for her, tapped into Eric's mind one more time. _Maybe this gig's about forgiveness. Obviously, not for the gang who killed you two lovebirds, but for yourself._

"Why me?"

 _Revenge – that's why you're here. Justice – that's what's come over those punks along with your vengeance. But in the end, you couldn't save Shelly, kid – there was nothing you could've done. Obviously, you need to end your mission of vengeance, but you also need to let it go once that end finally happens. It's for your sake as well as hers, kid, and she's not gonna want to see you in this state._

"She's…waiting for me?"

 _Hey…it can't rain all the time, right?_

"Smartass", Eric muttered, shaking his head as he became lost in thought. As he did, the crow flew away and through the broken window of the apartment, its eyes looking down at Sarah as it mounted on a large pipe beam near the ceiling.  
"Come on, Eric. I know you're here", Sarah called out again, her voice starting to shake just a hint. "I miss you…and Shelly. It gets so lonely all by myself."

Lonely? Well, that was something she and Eric could both agree on. But maybe…the bird had a point. Yes, he was here for revenge – the darker side of a broken love – and justice for the city had certainly followed, its more innocent denizens no longer having to fear for their lives because of the hell-bent gang, of which there was now only one member left.  
And what happened that year ago wasn't his fault. Eric had just gotten caught up in the disaster and suffered right along with Shelly. It wasn't his fault that everything had happened to them. It was all theirs.  
If he had to make them own up to it through vengeance, by all means, he was going to see that through. Eric had brought hell with him to finish the murdering bastards, and would continue to until the last member, Skank, had rejoined his friends.  
But he didn't need to stay stuck in that hell.

Gently, Eric walked off the edge of the roof and took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he stepped off into empty space. He could feel the beginnings of free-fall taking him, but it wouldn't do so completely, his hands gently gripping the wet window frame section again to let him softly land inside the apartment just as Sarah had turned away to snatch her skateboard.  
"The hell with you. I thought you cared", she said, a note of sad anger in her voice as she started to walk away.

Then Eric saw her stop in her tracks as the sun peeked through the clouds, casting a shadow of Eric's form – clutching the window frame, one leg leaning against the bottom of it.  
"Sarah."  
She turned around at the sound of her name, Eric's voice growly and low with barely held-in emotion.  
"I do care", Eric affirmed, letting a gentle smile cross his face.  
It seemed to float over onto Sarah's as well, and she dropped her skateboard and ran to him. Eric let go of the frame and crouched down, his arms open for Sarah to dive into them and hug him tightly. He returned the familial embrace tightly, happy that she was still all right, and feeling her own tears as they soaked into the shoulder of his tattered shirt.

Sarah leaned back to get a good look at Eric with his painted face and torn shirt, the electrical tape wrapped around his arms and stomach over it. "What happened with you?  
"Oh…I don't think your mom's boyfriend took kindly to my nighttime visit last night", Eric answered half-facetiously.  
Sarah's eyes widened at his words. "You killed him, didn't you?"  
Eric nodded slowly. "He killed me twice before – once when he violated Shelly, and again when he and his friends tossed me out that window", he responded, jerking a thumb toward the broken window.

Sarah looked over Eric's shoulder at the broken window before looking back at Eric. "To hell with him anyway. I never liked him in the first place." A look of darkness passed over Eric's face, to which Sarah responded, "Well…not that I'm happy about it, but…my mom seems to be getting better, even with Funboy getting killed."  
"I never said I did that."  
"No, but she did. She told me everything that happened – you coming in and making him shoot himself after freaking them both out", Sarah told him. "You did kill him, though, didn't you?"  
Eric slowly nodded, closing his eyes for a bit before opening them to look back at Sarah again. "I like to think he was already dead, had been since even touching Shelly. I just…delivered the message."

"Did you have to?"

To that, Eric couldn't find an answer. He looked down at the floor, obviously laden down with the memories of everything that he'd done. It was for the best, though, but that didn't stop anything.  
"Well…like I said, it must have helped, because Dar- my mom's getting better. She made me breakfast, emptied her drug stash, even told me she loved me as I got ready to come out here", Sarah responded.  
Eric's eyes widened, a smile crossing his face. "Well…Sarah. That's wonderful."  
Sarah nodded, her smile turning a bit skeptical. "Yeah…still a bit weird though, hearing it after so long. From her, anyway."  
"I can imagine. But…" Eric gave Sarah a gentle pat on the shoulder – like he used to do when he and Shelly took care of her – and finished with, "We had your back, though. Sure, we weren't your parents, but…"

Then Sarah caught Eric by surprise by hugging him tightly again, losing the bit of composure she'd managed to bring back. "You were like my parents, Eric. Like my parents and an older brother and sister combined. I missed you both…so much."  
Eric hugged her tightly back again, more tears falling from his eyes. "I missed you too, little skater girl." At this, he heard a chuckle come not just from her, but from him as well. That had always been his nickname for Sarah ever since they'd first met, and although she'd needled him about it, she never complained and always seemed to like it.

Slowly pulling away to look down into Sarah's eyes, Eric let out a shaky breath before he spoke, his voice low and growly again. "But, you know I can't be your friend anymore, since…well, since I'm dead?"  
Sarah shut her eyes tight, trying to keep the tears back. "God…I know. You didn't come back for me, did you?"  
Eric shook his head sadly.  
"And you're gonna end up going away for good once you're done with…whatever you're doing, aren't you?"  
"Yeah", Eric whispered with a nod. "I've some affairs to put in order, and then I'm going back to be with Shelly."

He placed a hand on her cheek, making sure she understood Eric's every word, even if they didn't completely help the hurt in her heart. "But I still care about you, very much. I still love ya, kid. And…"  
"And what?" Sarah asked.

"And I'm sorry for everything that's happened to you, and for everything that will happen to you."

Sarah managed to smile lightly, even as Gabriel joined them both to nestle against Sarah's crouched legs. "It's alright, Eric. It's not your fault. None of it is your fault."  
He had to smile lightly at that, flashing a glance up to the crow before it let out a soft caw.

 _She's smarter than she looks, kid. Wrap it up, though. We've got work to do._

Gently rising to his feet, Eric let himself give Sarah one last hug before he picked up Gabriel and offered him to her. "A guardian angel who brings you good luck."  
"I think it's worked so far", Sarah managed to whisper with a sad chuckle, gently scratching behind Gabriel's ears. Eric smiled at that, the last of the tears flowing past his cheeks. He stood back and watched as Sarah slowly turned around and began to leave.  
"Don't be afraid, Sarah. Someday, all things will be fair and there will be wonderful surprises. I truly believe that."  
Nestling Gabriel closer to her, Sarah hung on to the sounds of Eric's words, letting them comfort her. She turned around to say one last good-bye to Eric.

But he was gone, not even a breath of wind to replace him. Only the sound and sight of the falling, glistening rain met her senses.  
Sarah's gaze lingered at the spot where Eric had been, hoping he'd come back for just a second, but she knew that he wouldn't – not now. Yet even as she left, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd find him again before he actually had to leave. "It can't rain all the time, right, Gabriel?" Sarah asked the white purring form in her arms.  
She turned away again, feeling grief come over her again, but along with it a slice of happiness that she'd not quite felt in a long time.

* * *

The grief seemed to wash over her at full force, the afternoon finding Sarah and Gabriel at Mickey's hot dog stand.  
"Hey, the Sarah monster found herself a pet", Mickey chided playfully. But he noticed the saddened expression on Sarah's face as she sat down and wisely decided not to say anything else. Instead, he merely got a hot dog ready for her and set it on the table in front of her.

It was still untouched even as Albrecht pulled up to the booth, seeing Sarah and Gabriel there at the counter. "He like his plain or with onions?" Albrecht asked as he walked up, fresh from negotiating with his captain to negotiating his suspension to only a week. It was still bad, but he couldn't have asked for anything better.  
"Fine, don't talk to me", Albrecht said, receiving no answer from Sarah, sitting down next to her.

Instead, all he got was a bizarre question. "When someone's dead, they can't come back. Can they?"  
"I suppose that depends", Albrecht responded, looking over at Sarah and absentmindedly running his fingers against the cat's cheek. "You talking about anyone in particular?"  
Sarah shook her head, resignation coming to her face. "You'll just think I'm nuts", she conceded.  
However, Albrecht wasn't buying it. "Then maybe they'll have to lock us both up." At his words, Sarah's head jolted to look at Albrecht again, surprise in her eyes.  
"You saw him too?"  
Albrecht nodded lightly, a light smile on his face as he answered, "I saw somebody. Maybe it was your fairy godfather."

Sarah let out a light shrug before shaking her head. "Eric didn't come back for me. He said he still cares about me, but he can't be my friend anymore because…" She looked up at Albrecht as she delivered the last words. "Because he's dead."  
Dead, eh? Albrecht hadn't been that gravesite in a long time, nor had he been to church in even longer. Maybe it was about time that he rectified that mistake – it was time for him to pay some long overdue respects. And if any vandals tried to get after him, he still had his assigned handgun and shotgun in the back of his civilian car – a protective condition of the terms he and his captain had come to.  
For now, though, there was still one more thing he could do. "You need a friend to walk you home, Sarah?"

* * *

Skank, his body addled with pain from the car bashing into him and the cuts he'd gotten in his hand, pointed wildly at the middle member of the band whose photo Top Dollar was showing him – Hangman's Joke. How appropriate, considering the man in the middle, the one Skank pointed crazily at, was Eric Draven.  
"Tha's him! Tha's him!" He moved away from the table, wildly gesticulating as Top Dollar and Grange looked on with mild and wry amusement. "But he wuh diff'rent. He wuhs all painted white, li'e some kinda dead whore. I seen him! T-Bird, he sen' me in fer sum road beers, righ!? Then he took 'im away, but I chased 'im down!" He began to break down in tears as he cried the last. "And then he flash fried T-Bird to his fuggin' car!"

As Skank grabbed a half-full bottle of whiskey and toasted T-Bird – "Here's to you, buddy!" – Top Dollar leaned over and whispered to Grange, "Maybe we oughta just videotape this and play it back in slow motion. Did you see the grave?"  
"Empty", Grange said with a light nod, reaching up to cinch his glasses disdainfully as Skank limped across the room chanting, "Fire it up!" But as soon as he heard them speak, he stopped and looked over at them.

"Grave? Whuh grave? What about my fuckin' grave, man!?" he cried, limping toward Grange before he shoved Skank into the side of one of the chairs.  
"Three out of four, Top. He's working his way back to this speed freak right here."

Top Dollar had heard of people coming back from the dead before, and that a crow could bring their soul back when an immense tragedy were to happen to that person. Or their loved ones. So whoever – whatever – this Eric Draven was, something bad had happened to him, probably last Devil's Night. Why else would he be after Top Dollar's best gang? And why else would he have gone after Gideon, making him come to Top Dollar? Because that's where Tin-Tin sold all the memorabilia from their killings - jewelry, personal items, _rings._

"Ih's not fair. Ih's Funboy's fault; that boy was out of control", Skank began to whine hysterically again. "T-Bird, he come in and says-" – he let out a sloppy whistle – "'Waste 'em both!' And now this ghost gonna kill my ass ne-! Gah-ha!"  
Top Dollar had bolted up from his throne-like chair to deck Skank hard in the gut, if only to get him to shut up more than anything else. Then he moved away from his chair and slid Skank into it, keeping him there as Myca walked back into the room, Grange still standing behind the chair.  
Skank continued to cry quietly until Top Dollar spoke, as a parent would to a child afraid of the demons under his bed. "Hey, that ain't no ghost."

"They have all arrived", Myca stated. It was about that time again – time to get his lieutenants together for one big Devil's Night party.  
"Watch him", Top Dollar ordered Grange. "We might need him." Turning away, he followed Myca out of the room to welcome his merry men inside; yet he remained unable to shake the feeling that it was the worst idea he'd ever have.


	10. Part 4-1: Despair-Attrition

Part. 4.1 - Despair: Attrition

October 30th. Devil's Night.  
The setting sun of the anniversary of Eric's death found him instead on the raised roof above his loft, playing Shelly's favorite solo again.

Yet there was something very wrong about the way he was playing it this time – the music was carrying a dark tone of angry distortion that flowed underneath it, a sinister current of musical poison and rage. It seemed to carry into the guitar itself as Eric changed the rhythm of the notes he was playing. Now it was as if he were pulling the imminent battle into his very notes and using it as a call to arms.  
All the anger that he felt toward his killers came rising to the surface, and Eric took it out full force on the guitar, playing the kind of ripping solo that metal players would wish they could pull off in their wildest dreams. Then, he took things one step further, grabbing the guitar by the neck and bringing it down onto the still-ringing amplifier, crushing it more and more with every axe-like swing.  
With one last grunt of building rage, Eric sent the once-beautiful guitar, its cherry-red finish looking bloody, hurling away from the building. He let his fingers run over his new memento mori – the leather trenchcoat he'd appropriated from Tin-Tin, the spent bullet shell in his hair from Funboy's gun, and a spot on his arm where he'd burned from T-Bird's special liquid explosive.  
And now there was only one last murdering swine left – the most spineless of the lot. It was time to go.

* * *

The thrashing of guitars met up with Eric at Club Trash as soon as he arrived there.  
Inside, the club was a throbbing, heaving mass of humanity – a couple hundred young men and women rocking out to the group playing onstage that night. Guitars thrashed murderously, the drums being beaten at like the many heartbeats of an army of demons, the voice of the main singer thinly screeched over the throbbing of the bass that ran alongside every note he delivered.  
This wasn't what he was interested in, however, as Eric took a quick look inside the top floor of the complex from his roost on the fire escape.

* * *

Inside, gang leaders were readying weapons and engaging in conversation about what they would do with their new holiday, ammunition and money littering almost every part of the table except for the end closest to the window, where a phone system sat expectantly.  
Suddenly, the room went quiet as Top Dollar stepped up to his throne, Grange beside him restraining Skank as he moaned with pain, and Myca leaning lazily on the throne's other side.  
"Well, gentlemen, it seems that T-Bird won't be joining us tonight on account of a slight case of death", Top Dollar announced, only a hint of regret in his joking voice. He turned to Skank. "You want to sit down?"  
Dragging the chair next to him out, Grange forcefully flopped Skank down into the chair, Skank himself letting out a sigh as he rested his arms on top of the table, one hand protectively wrapping around a glass of whiskey in front of him.

"Well well well, Devil's Night is upon us again", Top Dollar stated, beginning his grand motivational speech. "And I thought we'd throw a little party, set a bunch of fires…" His eyes gleamed maliciously as he bit into the last words. "And make a little profit."  
"I like the pretty lights", Myca agreed with a sinister smile of her own, earning a collective laugh from the twenty or so men grouped around the long table.  
"Problem is, it's all been done before, boys. You see what I'm saying?" Top Dollar asked his flunkies.  
Immediately, Imada, a bearded Oriental man with an affinity for close-quarters combat, spoke up. "That's no reason to quit."  
Shaking his head with a laugh, Top Dollar reprimanded him persuasively, "Wrong. Best reason to quit – only reason to quit."

Slowly, he rose from the chair, taking a slow pace around the table as his words rang out into the room. "A man has an idea. The idea attracts others, all like-minded. The idea expands until the idea becomes…an institution." He practically spat out the last word in disgust before continuing.

"What was the idea? See, that's what's been bothering me, boys", Top Dollar confessed. Sure, Top Dollar wished he could've been out there with his crews setting the fires, but betraying his name, money was never truly why he started Devil's Night, no matter how nice it was. "I'll tell ya, when I used to think about the idea itself, it'd put a big old smile on my face."  
Finishing his leisurely lap around the table, Top Dollar came back to his throne, gently pushing it away and bending over his end of the table. "See, greed? It's for amateurs. Disorder, chaos, anarchy…now _that's_ fun!"

"What about Devil's Night?" Another one of the lieutenants, Graeme, decked head to toe in handguns over his dark clothes.  
"What about it?" Top Dollar repeated rhetorically. "I started the first fires in this goddamned city. But before I knew it, every charlatan and shitheel was following me. And you know what they got now?"

From his post on the fire escape, Eric closed his eyes, channeling his rage to a place where he could easily access it for the blown-out battle that was sure to come. He forced himself to listen to Top Dollar's speech, hearing him relish the idea of Devil's Night as it once was. That'd been Top's plan all along – it wasn't just for his financial gains by milking people for their money just so they could be safe from the fires his gangs caused. It was all just for the fun of it.  
And Shelly was dead, Sarah's mom all but ruined, from that satanic brand of fun. All from a simple idea that had grown into the institution in the form of-

"Devil's Night greeting cards!" He heard Top Dollar chuckle ironically through the window. "Isn't that precious?"  
Inside, Top Dollar was getting ready to rile up his gang – all he needed was the right moment as he finished, "The idea has become the institution, boys. Time to move along."  
"So you don't want us to do 'light my fire' time for the whole city?" A third lieutenant cried out, clad in a dark hoodie and sunglasses darker than his own chocolate skin shade.

"Oh, no", Top Dollar answered. This was it. "No. I want you to set a fire so goddamned big, the gods will notice us again, that's what I'm saying." His voice rose a decibel, his growl turning into a fevered cry to the heavens that his men enforced with their own concurrences.  
"I want all you boys to be able to look me straight in the eye one more time and say, 'Are we having fun or what!'" Then he turned to Skank, hammering his hands down on the table as Skank downed his whiskey. "Hey, you, what's-your-name, Skank! You don't feel that!?"  
"I feel like a little worm on a big fuckin' hook!" Skank responded reflexively. This earned a chaotic laugh from the men gathered around the table, experiencing pleasure at Skank's plight.  
"'I feel like a little worm on a big fuckin' hook!' Well, boy, your mama must be damn proud of you!" Top Dollar yelled, his voice reflecting the feeling.

However, the laughter quickly faded away at the sound of a soft caw at the end of the table. A sleek back crow had mounted there, earing a cry of fear from Skank, a wide-eyed glance of realization from Myca, and curious stares from everyone else.  
"How the hell did that thing get in here?"  
"I let him in", a voice answered from the shadows. As if answering a call, the crow flew away to mount in the open window, Eric coming out of the shadows to replace him. "Gentlemen!"  
Immediately, the soldiers pushed away from the table and readied their weapons, pointing them squarely at Eric as Skank tried to bolt out of the room only to be held back by Grange's painful grasp. Soaking in the feeling, Eric toppled the chair on the other end of the table aside and jumped onto the table itself, sitting cross-legged there and casting his gaze on every man in the room.

They were gutsy, all right. But they were scared too.

"So. You're him, hm?" Eric turned to look at the man across from him – long hair down to the his chest, dark vest over a bright shirt, leather gloves over his hands flexing as he leaned lazily against his chair. "The avenger. The killer of killers." Eric could feel as much as see Top Dollar's gaze rake over him – his own wavy black hair, his painted Irony mask, the electrical tape around his black-clad stomach leather pants and trenchcoat creaking lightly.  
"Nice outfit", Top Dollar complimented. "I'm not too sure about the face though."  
Slowly, Eric raised an accusing finger at the shaking form of Skank, earning another cowardly cry from him. "I just want him", Eric requested.  
Top Dollar looked over at Skank with a scoff. "Well, you can't have him", he smartly replied.  
So, it was going to be a fight then. Eric let a sinister smile cross his face, speaking even as he rose onto his feet and spread his arms wide. "Well…I see you've made your decision. Now let's see you enforce it."  
"Ah, this is already boring the shit out of me", Top Dollar shrugged off, before ordering his men, "Kill him!"

Again, as one, they fired their guns, handgun rounds, shotgun slugs, and machine gun bullets piercing into Eric's chest like a shower of hot metal. He took it all in stride and could've kept standing, but he went for the better approach and fell off of the table as if dead. He hit the ground with a flump, before slowly collecting himself and moving in a crouch underneath the table. He had to wait now.  
"Ooh, that had to hurt", Top Dollar commented before the whole table burst into laughter again. "Well, that's that!"  
"Yeah, that guy was crazy!" This was another lieutenant of Top Dollar's, Braeden, a dandy with a dark beret and shades and packing an Uzi. Eric could see his booted feet wander to the end of the table, his shadow bending with him as he looked. "Hey, he's gone!"  
Noticing a handgun tucked in an open holster on Braeden's thigh, Eric quickly yanked it away, flipped the safety off and squeezed the trigger. The 9mm hollow-point round flashed up into Braeden's head, sending blood and brain splattering up and then back down onto the floor before the body followed.

Okay boys, Eric thought. Show me what you've got.

As the bullets began to fly underneath the table, Eric reached out to grab the ankles of two of the vandals on either side of the table, pulling them under and making them eat a bullet each. Then, stealing a Browning 9mm from one new corpse and a .44 Colt Python from the other, he hopped out from underneath the table and reared to his full height, feeling hot slugs pepper into his skin as he pulled the triggers of his new toys, returning the favor.  
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the three leaders – Top Dollar, Grange, and Myca – run out of a back door of the room. Good, Eric thought. They were of no importance to him right now.  
As one of the thugs near the window finally went down, Eric noticed that some of them had made their way to an upstairs level that looked down into the meeting room. But just as he processed this, a hard blast from a shotgun rocketed into his shoulder with enough force to send him reeling to the ground. Dropping onto his side – even this glorious pain seemed to make him stronger! – Eric emptied the weapons across the room, sending some of the gang members down to the ground in ever-increasing puddles of their own blood.

Then he saw Skank, hiding behind the escort of one of the lieutenants. Eric shot to his feet again, tossing his empty guns away and bolting over to the coward., even as Skank pushed the escort into Eric's arms. He took the time to spare her a glance and say, "Get out of here", before shoving her aside. Looking to see where Skank had gone, Eric saw him caught in the crossfire of another few gang members before he ducked beneath the table to hide.

Focusing on the first member in front of him, who turned out to be an Uzi-toting Imada, Eric sent a chopping hand to the swine's wrist and knocked the gun out of his hands. Before Imada could do anything else, Eric turned him around and put him in a headlock, delivering another swift chop just below his neckline and tossing him onto the table. He kept the momentum going as he grabbed the succeeding gang member, turning him around and making him shoot down one of his comrades before throwing him away, even as the freshly-shot man fell through the glass of the window to the level below.  
Letting go of the handgun-packing man, Eric ducked to avoid a swift blow before replying with a knife, picked up from the table, to the man's throat. Blood poured swiftly from the wound even as Eric tossed him to the ground and grabbed another gang member by the lapels and throwing him into the line of fire brought on by six more of the bastards.  
Those six turned out to be the last ones in Eric's part of the room. He'd get the guys on the upper level in due time.

"Oh, you sewer rats are so faithful…" Eric growled as he hopped onto the table before flipping off and away from it right in front of the leftover members. "You cause me to blush to my bones…" Somersaulting onto the floor from the flip, he grabbed a leftover Browning from the floor – the weight telling him it was loaded – and emptied three bullets up into the gut of one of the last gang members.  
"You simply can't stop dying for me!" Eric cried in murderous delight as he threw the fresh corpse away before turning to face a beanie-wearing man with an outstretched gun. Eric heard the empty clank of the barrel as the man pulled the trigger – he'd run out of bullets.  
"Well, someone's not counting!" Eric cried, arcing his leg to kick the empty gun away before putting his own bullet into the man's forehead.

He turned away to see two more of the last vestige of the gang firing away at him with all they could muster, the other few gang members bolting away from him to find ample time to reload. Wounding the two members in front of him, Eric tossed his now-empty gun away and made for Top Dollar's weapons cabinet, availing himself of a steel-bladed katana, the blade itself freshly honed. He swung it up and then away from the bleeding gut of a third gang member who tried to rush him, then sliced it down into a fourth before wheeling him around and tossing him forcefully into a nearby wall, and then swung the blade in an ascending arc across the torso of the fifth man before bringing it back into a ready position as the bastards crumpled to the ground.  
Eric's voice seemed to ring out in an unearthly fashion even amidst the dying gunfire. "You're all going to die."  
A few peppering slugs rammed into Eric's back, and he turned to see one of remaining members unloading an Uzi into him. Flinging the sword away so that it landed sticking out from the table, Eric raced toward him and flung an arm back to ward off another gang member who had come to rush him from behind. Some of the guys from the upper level had finally come down.  
He turned and flung the bastard away from him onto a small table mounted in the wall before dropping onto his back and rearing his legs up above his head, kicking another one of the gang members into a rolling chair. Eric reared his legs up and around to kip back onto his feet just in time to see the guy fall through the window, glass following in his wake. The feedback that followed from the impact told Eric that he'd crashed into the stage just as the band was performing.  
Eric put it out of his mind, grabbing a pair of stray handguns from the ground and flipping up onto the table before falling onto his back to take care of another Uzi-toting gang member firing from the upper level. Before he finished falling to his death, Eric hurled himself onto his feet again and cut down the last two bastards he could see, the barrel of his gun flashing as the last two of the gang members went down.

Finally, the firing ceased, even as the crowd noises followed suit – the band and audience beat a hasty retreat to whatever exits they could find. Flickering lights flashed like lightning across the room, Eric finally getting a good look around him. Chairs were thrown across the room higgledy-piggledy, the table a scattered mess of drugs and dollars with the katana still sticking up. The bodies of the gang lieutenants he'd killed lay strewn amidst the flotsam, blood seeping from their wounds in pools on the floor.  
Then he also heard the whimpering coming from underneath the table – Skank was somehow still alive. And the pathetic swine was just beneath Eric's feet.  
He rammed the sword deeper through the table, and Skank could see the blood from its previous victims gleaming viciously in the harsh light. Squealing with fright, he bolted from his hiding place only to be forcefully turned out to look into Eric's black, rage-filled eyes.

"Guess it's not a good day to be a bad guy, huh, Skank?" Eric's voice trembled with the rage and anger he felt as he confronted the last of the gang that killed him and violated his love.  
It quickly grew to shame for Skank at his response – the bastard was so scared, he didn't even have the dignity to face his death, let alone lie properly. "I'm not Skank", he chuckled, turning his head to a random dead body. "That's Skank right there! Skank's dead", he taunted into Eric's face.  
A memory flash overtook him –

 **Shelly screaming for her life as Skank attempted to hush her, running his hand over her cheek like a lover.**

\- And Eric uttered out, "That's right." Letting the last of his rage simmer forth, he turned Skank around and pinned him against the wall, taking a knife to his back to carve out the symbol of the crow there, his cries of pain ringing out in the ruined room. Then, before Skank could do anything else, Eric tossed him through the window that led outside and watched as his flailing body made harsh contact with the hood of a police cruiser.

They must've heard all the shooting – the police force was out in full tonight. At the sound of doors bolting open and handguns cocking, Eric turned to see a few of the boys in blue aiming their weapons at him.  
"That's all she wrote! Move and we shoot!" one of the cops called out. With mocking sadness across his face, Eric slowly raised his hands and looked at them. He kept his gaze on them even as he danced away in a high-stepping grapevine and jumped out a back window to the fire escape, hearing them shoot away at him.

He looked down to see the cops on the ground aim and fire their weapons at him, but only a few even came close. Eric turned around and climbed the short ladder to the roof, hunkering down on top of it only to behold a spotlight held down at him from a police helicopter, its blades chopping against the air. He spared a glance at the airborne vehicle before bolting across the roof, soaring into the air with his arms and legs flailing. He saw the brick of a smaller building's roof rush up to meet him, and Eric landed on it in a crouch before sprinting across the roofs of adjacent buildings in front of him, the helicopter opening fire with its mounted machine gun. He could feel the rounds drill into the brick behind where he ran, and they whizzed past his leather-covered legs as he soared across alleys to other waiting buildings.  
Finally, he came to a gap that was too far even for him to jump, but he did notice a rather large pile of trash that could easily cushion him. Eric jumped off the edge of the building and stumbled out of the pile, scaring away a homeless derelict in the process.

The first thing he saw was Albrecht's car, its passenger door open and waiting for him, Albrecht himself behind the wheel. "Come on, man, in!" Albrecht ordered, and Eric was only too happy to oblige, crouching into the seat to catch his breath as he closed the door behind him. The car sped off to lose the chopper, bullets still raining down behind and away from it as they sped away.  
"You want some free advice? Next time, duck!" Albrecht prodded at him, though with his tone, it seemed more like a police order than a joke. Maybe, Eric thought, Albrecht was taking him and his situation more seriously now.  
"So many cops, you'd think they were giving away donuts", Albrecht chuckled again. Eric's breathing slowed down to almost normal pace again, and he looked up to see the streetlights peeking in through the car's windshield.  
The car screeched to a sudden halt as Albrecht looked up to see that he'd lost the chopper and it was flying back to police headquarters. Then he took a look at his passenger to see if he needed any help.  
But Eric had bolted from the car, the open passenger door and a myriad of bloody spots on the seat's leather back to indicate he'd even been there. It was annoying, and yet, Albrecht couldn't help but let out a wry chuckle at what had just happened.  
"I knew you were gonna do that."

* * *

Across town, another car was making its own sort of getaway.  
Top Dollar leaned his head against the window, gazing out at the inner city from the backseat window of his car. His gaze seemed almost sentimental and sad, seeing the dark edifices of the city beyond the overpass.  
"Look at that out there. The whole city oughta be in flames by now…sky oughta be red", he said wistfully.  
From the driver's seat, Grange lit a cigarette, the gears in his own head turning as the filter touched his lips. "So that, I take it, was the late and great Eric Draven."  
"He has power", Myca whispered, the stem of a crow feather flicking between her fingers. She had gotten the best sight of the crow, and had almost nabbed it before that gunfight even started, but it had flown away before she could get a grip, leaving the feather behind.

"But it is power you can take away from him."  
"I like him already", Top Dollar growled, his gaze never leaving the view of outside.

"The crow is his link between the realm of the living and the land of the dead."  
"Hm. I've heard those legends, sister…the crow, an avatar of death. And yet, it's able to bring a soul back to put tragedy right if that soul needs it. Am I right?" Top Dollar asked. Sparing a glance behind him, he saw Myca nod only barely.  
"Wasn't he the guy T-Bird and his gang roughed up in that apartment building downtown? Along with his pretty little girlfriend?"

Suddenly it clicked into Top Dollar's brain. He remembered – he'd heard from his best gang a year ago that someone who lived in that building was hocking a petition around to campaign for tenants' rights and better living conditions in that apartment building. Of course that had gone against Top Dollar's simple creed – he owned the building; he obtained the money from the people so they could continue living there. He didn't get it, or the tenants complained loud and long enough, the gang came to collect.  
Eric Draven and Shelly Webster. They'd been tenants of his. And Shelly had complained. Top Dollar had heard about this and sent his gang there personally.

And now Eric had come back for revenge against the death of his true love. Just like a fairy tale.

He must've smiled outwardly at Grange's words, for the next words Grange spoke were promise itself.  
"So kill the crow and destroy the man."

Top Dollar couldn't help but keep the smile on his face. Things were finally about to go his way again.


	11. Part 4-2: Despair-It's Not Death If

Part 4.2: Despair - It's Not Death If You Refuse It

The crow flew back down to perch gently on Eric's shoulder as he walked down the debris-laden sidewalk, his hands idly wandering over the top part of his chest as if feeling for the wounds that had only freshly healed some time ago. His senses were finally coming back to him – he'd killed the last of the gang that killed him. He didn't need to be here anymore, as far as he knew.

He was done.

Eric leaned against the metal support of a nearby building, shedding away the leather trenchcoat and tossing it away as the crow flew onto the roof. "I'm coming home, Shelly", he sighed, bowing his head. He was done.  
Yet he felt empty inside, as if his whole reason for being here was now gone. His mission was accomplished, and yet…he had nothing to show for it now.

Then he heard a sound that, for so long, had been foreign to him: the sound of children laughing. Behind his closed eyelids, he also saw the wavering beams of flashlights. He lifted his head and opened his eyes to see a group of five kids, dressed in the Halloween costumes of skeletons and witches, running toward him and laughing with joy. Eric hadn't heard nor seen any kids since the first Devil's Night fires he'd witnessed, but hearing them now seemed like the most welcome sound he could have ever heard, aside from Shelly's voice.

He let out a laugh of his own as the kids ran around him, but this laugh wasn't sinister or devilish. It was alight with his own relief that his mission of vengeance did indeed have a happy ending of sorts, aside from what his own would be. These kids could be safe on the streets, free to enjoy the Halloween that came without fear of the arsonists having their own fun. Justice had been served.  
Eric's laughter quickly grew to a short series of happy sobs as the realization came to him – the crow was right. This mission hadn't been all about vengeance. It was indeed about justice as well.

* * *

At first, the smile seemed impossible to leave behind even as he made his way to the derelict church that guarded the cemetery where he'd been interred. Yet, with every step Eric took inside the cemetery, his grief began to come over him again. Yet he didn't know why now.  
He was about to see Shelly again, the city he'd lived in was free from any threats from T-Bird's gang, and Sarah and her mom weren't going to be hurt anymore. He should've been happy.  
But maybe, Sarah's resting form on top of Shelly's grave was the answer – he'd have to leave his little skater friend behind again. Even the words that came from the crow into Eric's mind offered little comfort.

 _Come on, kid. You're ok now; you're practically home free. Shelly's waiting for you. Don't forget to pack, and don't walk away. Sarah will be fine here._

Quietly, Eric walked up to her, the crow flying overhead to perch on the top of Shelly's gravestone as Eric crouched down and gently wiggled one of Sarah's boot-clad feet. Sarah woke with a start and looked up to see who'd intruded on her slumber. Seeing it was only Eric, she relaxed and sat up, leaving a bouquet of flowers she'd brought with her on the ground.

"You're gonna that I shouldn't be in a cemetery at night, right?"  
Eric shook his head, a gentle grin coming to his face. "Safest place in the world to be."  
"It's 'cause everyone else is dead", Sarah shrugged. Eric nodded lightly at her words, sadness coming to him in a fresh stab – even with the gang dead, it'd take a while for Sarah and her mom to get completely back to loving terms.

"I knew you'd come here", Sarah stated. "I just wanted to see you one last time, Eric."  
Eric nodded again, smiling lightly. "It's really late though, Sarah."  
"You didn't say goodbye."  
"You're just gonna have to forgive me for that", Eric begged, gently placing a hand on Sarah's cheek in a comforting manner.  
"And you're never coming back? All your…affairs are in order, Eric?" Sarah wondered.  
"Oh…all except for one", Eric answered. With that, he reached up and undid the leather thong around his neck, making sure that Sarah could see. "I gave this to Shelly once, you know. But I think she'd like you to have it."  
Slowly, he wrapped the thong loosely around Sarah's neck as she bowed her head, tying the ends of the thong up again so that it hung there loosely. "This way, you'll always remember her."  
Sarah looked down at the ring in wonderment and shock before her gaze traveled back to Eric's ghostly face. "I'll never take it off", she promised before reaching up and burying her face in Eric's shoulder, wrapping her arms around him. Eric held her tightly to him, tears flowing quietly from his eyes and into her shoulder as he felt her weeping into his own shoulder.

Hesitantly, Sarah took a deep breath as they pulled away from each other, slowly rising to her feet and leaving Eric crouched in front of Shelly's gravestone. "I'd better go sneak back in the house", she sighed as she grabbed her skateboard and began to walk away. She stopped only to look back at Eric and whisper, "Bye, Eric."  
He meant to say goodbye, or at least look back and wave in lieu of that. But he was too choked up to even say anything, fearing that even the slightest word would break him now. Sarah must've realized what Eric was going through, so she continued on her way, grabbing her skateboard from where she'd left it by the cemetery gates.

She'd just made it down to the curb by the church when she was suddenly grabbed from behind and a deep voice whispered in her ear, "Take it easy, sweetheart." Sarah recognized it as the dark-skinned man who was always checking on things for his boss at the club – Grange.  
Even as she struggled, Grange pulled her into the derelict church without much effort and kept his grip on her strong as he held her before the lurking forms of a long-haired man, dressed in an old-fashioned vest over his flowing white shirt and pants, and a dark-haired Oriental woman in a black robe, vest, and pants.  
"So what's that?" Top Dollar asked, snatching the ring away from Sarah's neck. "Souvenir there from your pal? I'll just keep it for good luck, what do you say?"  
Myca strode up to her, running her leather-clad fingers along Sarah's cheek, Sarah pulling away into Grange's form in disgust. "Her eyes are so innocent", Myca whispered, a sinister smile coming to her full lips.

Outside, Eric looked on longingly at Shelly's gravestone, the bouquet Sarah had brought in his hand as he reached out for the cold granite. His fingertips had barely grazed the surface when he hear Sarah's cry for help.  
"Eric!"  
He turned toward the church, closing his eyes as the crow gave him the sight he needed – Sarah's scared face, her voice crying for help before she was dragged back by a dark pair of hands. Top Dollar and Grange had her hostage in the church; there could be no other explanation.

 _Kid, you know if you go in there, I can't help you. You're done with your vengeance, and I did say this was a whole lot more than that, but it's your choice with what you do._

"It's alright, bird. This is for me", Eric whispered, rising to his feet and bolting to the doors. He threw them open with a loud clang, the bird flying past his shoulders as he got a good look at the crumbling infrastructure of the church and the rotting wood of the pews. The crow mounted on the back of one of them, Eric sparing a glance at the bird as he stepped in front of the altar, the once-white fabric covering it stained and rotting.  
Suddenly, a loud gunshot rang out throughout the main cathedral, and the bird fell from the pew with a loud CAW! Immediately, Eric felt weaker in the body – the iron in his bones that meant his invincibility fading away. But somehow, he could still hear the crow in his head.

 _Dammit…I just need to find a quiet place, kid. Keep them away._

His pet bird was only wounded, at least. Eric kept that in his head even as Top Dollar stepped out of the shadows, a sword holstered at his back as his boots crunched against the floor. Eric looked up at his long-haired countenance, noticing his lieutenant Grange standing in the balcony just above them, packing a high-powered rifle. Eric could still hear Sarah's muffled screams – they must have her tied up somewhere.

"Quick impression for you", Top Dollar stated, making wings out of his hands as he spoke. "Caw! Caw! Bang! Fuck, I'm dead!"  
Eric didn't let the significance of what that gesture meant faze him. At least, he hoped it wasn't visible. "Give me the girl, and I'll let you walk out of here", he responded, his cocky tone sounding even more human than it had all that night or last night.  
Top Dollar let out a soft hum of thought before he answered, "Yeah, well, why don't you just give me a minute to think about that, huh?" He turned his back to Eric, taking a few thoughtful paces, Eric looking on perplexingly. This wasn't what he expected to happen.

He also didn't expect what came next. "Nah, fuck it", Top Dollar muttered before turning around, a gun held aloft in his hand. Suddenly Eric felt the deadly smack of a bullet in his left shoulder, the shot ringing out loud and clear. Eric lifted his good hand to gingerly touch the bullet would, feeling the warm fluidity of blood seep out onto his fingertips. "Ah, fuck", he interjected, his shaking legs giving way beneath him as he crumpled to the floor.

Eric tried to shut the pain out as he lifted his good arm beneath him to lift himself up as he heard Top Dollar speak again. "Well, well, well, it does seem to me that our little life has undergone a rather significant change in the last few minutes, wouldn't you agree?" Then Eric felt the hard force of Top Dollar's open hand on the back of his wounded shoulder, and he cried out from the intense pain as he collapsed to the ground again. He winced again as he felt Top Dollar's probing fingers on his fresh gunshot wound.  
"Well, for a ghost, you bleed just fine." From what seemed like the distance of a long and dark cave, Eric heard the flap of his crow's wings and its soft caw, followed by Grange's call of "It's still alive!"  
"Well, then kill it!" Top Dollar ordered. The cocking of the rifle echoed through the cavernous church before Grange uttered, "Bye-bye, birdie."

Another gunshot rang out. But neither Eric nor the crow was hit.

Unbeknownst to him at the time, Officer Albrecht had been walking along the cemetery to watch for any suspicious activity. He knew that Eric would have to come back there at some point, but Albrecht never spotted him. What let him know that something was up, though, was when he spied Sarah walking away from the church before Grange snatched her up and dragged her inside. At that instant, he'd run to his car to grab his assigned weapon and a revolving shotgun the captain had given him for protection. Making sure both weapons were loaded, he made his way to hide behind the doorway of the church and wait until he knew for sure he could help the best he could. And now was the time.

That gunshot had come from Albrecht's shotgun and buried itself in a pillar of the cathedral, and Albrecht followed it up with some rounds from his handgun, managing to hit Grange in his ribs and render Top Dollar temporarily deaf in one ear. Albrecht ducked down and away before making a beeline for the nearest pew, hiding behind it as they returned fire.  
As the battle began, Eric managed to find a degree of strength and get to his feet, staggering away and around the back of the altar to keep out of the line of fire before hurling himself into a pew near the front, dodging a few of Top Dollar's well-aimed shots. Albrecht managed to work his way up, sending another load of buckshot Top Dollar's way, but missing. As consolation, however, Albrecht managed to look up and see that a few more of his shot off handgun rounds brought down Grange for good. He could see Top Dollar look up to see Grange crumple, dead before hitting the ground, before running off to the side and up a flight of stairs. Myca shortly joined him, the softly cawing form of the wounded crow in her hands.

Managing to join Eric's huddled form against the pew, Albrecht checked his shotgun to find it was empty, and then shoved it aside. "Shit. Well, I just came by to pay my respects, and here I find you getting all shot up again."  
"They've taken Sarah", Eric reported shakily, ignoring the banter.  
"How many more are there?"  
"Two more", Eric answered, gasping in slight pain as his wounded shoulder nudged the pew. "I can handle it. Don't worry."  
"I'm not worried", Albrecht stated matter-of-factly, a wry and ready smile on his face. "Look, here's the plan: you stay out in front and when they run out of ammo, I'll arrest them."  
Eric nodded – under the prior normal circumstances of his second life, that plan would've worked. "It does sound like a great plan, but there's just one problem."  
Albrecht turned to Eric, and it was only then that he noticed Eric's bullet wound, the blood still flowing freely from it. "Shit! You're bleeding all over the place."  
"Thanks for stating the tragically obvious, Sarge", Eric managed to retort through a light gasp of pain.  
"But I thought you were, y'know, invincible."  
"I was. I'm not anymore", Eric responded, gesturing toward the stairs where Top Dollar and Myca had gone. He heard Albrecht sigh lightly before he felt one of his big arms wrap around his shoulders and prop him back up. "Well, I guess you really will need my help, won't you?" Albrecht asked, escorting him over to the winding stairs.

Gingerly, Albrecht set Eric against the entryway to the bell tower's stairwell. He meant to wait for Eric to get himself together, even as he looked up just in time to see Top Dollar untie Sarah and take her upstairs after sharing a deep, passionate kiss with Myca in lieu of a potential final good-bye. Albrecht also noted the deadly metal of a handgun flashing in Myca's free hand as the crow wavered in her arm. Suddenly, she aimed it down the winding staircase after spotting Albrecht.  
He returned fire with his own weapon, but from his awkward position on the beginning of the stairs, none of his shots managed to hit. On the other hand, two of hers hit just fine, burying themselves into his gun shoulder and ribs. Albrecht collapsed against the wall in pain, feeling the bullet in his ribs click against bone and depart down from his stomach.

Gathering himself at hearing the shots, Eric staggered over to Albrecht's inert form. "I thought you were supposed to stay behind me."  
"I think I screwed up", Albrecht gasped, and Eric got a good look at Albrecht's wounds. He knew they'd hurt like hell, but Eric also knew that he'd be alright as long as Albrecht didn't move. Stepping over Albrecht's spread-eagled legs, Eric began his painful climb up the stairs, holding onto the guardrail for support as he ascended.

He got to the middle of the flight of stairs in time to see Myca on the balcony across him, a sinister smile across her seductive face and cradling the crow as if it were her own pet. Eric could feel the disgust come to his face at the sight of her as she spoke, as if seducing a new lover. The repulsion he felt toward Myca blended sickly inside him with the dread he felt over what she might do with the bird.  
"This is all the power you ever had, and now, it is mine." Eric suppressed a shudder as Myca's eyed traveled over his well-built, wounded form before she finished, "Pity there's not more time…for us."  
She aimed the handgun squarely at his face, and Eric knew that he would've been doomed.

But the crow still had his back.  
With a loud caw, the bird reared up into Myca's beautiful face and pecked away at the once-beautiful skin, leaving bloody scratch marks across and down her eyelids. Her screams of pain rang out down the bell tower as she tried to swat the bird away, but the crow couldn't be stopped from the task of depleting Myca's own power – the power of her all-seeing eyes.  
Eric saw Myca swing her arms in one final attempt to shoot the bird away, but it only resulted in her falling off of the balcony as the crow flew away. She managed to grab onto the rope, the bell ringing down into the tower with a funereal sound, blending with the fearful note of her screams.  
Suddenly, her hands slipped from the rope, and Myca fell down to the floor of the tower, her back breaking hard as her body impacted there, her screams of terror suddenly and deafeningly silenced. Eric looked down at her dead form for just a minute, letting himself remember the sight before he continued his own journey up the stairs to the open window that led to the cathedral roof.

 _I still can't do much for ya here, kid. Watch your back, and give him hell._

Letting out a small nod as the crow communicated with him – for what might be the last time – Eric ducked his head as he walked through the shattered window. The rain fell onto him with all the force of a great typhoon, lightning flashing and thunder exploding across the sky, the flashes casting across the silhouette of Top Dollar as he held Sarah in front of him like a human shield.

"Help, Eric! I'm scared!" Sarah cried out, Top Dollar restraining her tighter by the back of her neck.

"Let her go!" Eric yelled to the man, walking toward him, his back straightening as he drew every ounce of strength he could possibly muster. "You can have me. I won't fight you."  
He could see his opponent think it over before he finally said, "Alright", and let Sarah go…pushing her down the slick sloping metal of the church roof, Sarah screaming as the frictionless surface gave way.  
"NO!" Eric cried, making a grab for her before backing away, seeing Top Dollar draw his sword from the holster across his back. He came at Eric, the blade held aloft before it came down toward his chest. Eric ducked away from it, then rolled just enough to the side to dodge another downward swing. Reflexively, his leg kicked out to knock Top Dollar's own legs out from underneath him, sending him sprawling across the roof.

Swiftly but carefully getting to his feet, Eric bounded over Top Dollar's struggling form and ran for the front edge of the roof, seeing the dark finial cross that topped the balustrade there. A bolt of lightning crashed down into the cold, wet metal as Eric grabbed for it, the numbing sensation sending pins and needles into Eric's arms and through his body. He let out a demonic scream as he freed the cross from its bolted down prison, using it as a makeshift blade.

Defend and survive.

He saw as much as felt Top Dollar, on his feet again, swing the sword down onto the cold metal Eric wielded. Blades clashed against each other, Eric steadily beginning to advance and making the top gang leader back away. Yet as unwilling as he was to give up, Eric knew that he wouldn't be able to last long against Top Dollar – he was clearly a very experienced swordsman, and he wasn't the one carrying a light set of a bruises and a flaring bullet wound in a shoulder.  
Top Dollar seemed to remember that, the last few of his parries and thrusts meeting the iron of Eric's finial cross far too close to his hand, a dark chuckle emanating from his throat. Starting to panic, Eric attempted a weakening thrust of his blade at Top Dollar's neck, but only succeeded in cutting loose the thong that Shelly's ring hung from. The leather dropped to the roof, the ring rolling into the roof gutter just a short distance from Sarah.  
Sarah herself wasn't faring much better; the roof panel she hung from was starting to creak beneath even her light weight, and the supports she'd tried to gain a foothold on were snapping away from her. "Eric!" she cried out.  
Looking up, she saw Eric duck away from a wide thrust of Top Dollar's sword, the moves enough for them to lose their balance and slip into the gutter, Eric somersaulting down into it with a thud while Top Dollar slid slickly down the roof.  
Turning his body gingerly toward Sarah, Eric looked to see her barely hanging on for dear life, the crow flying away to a higher perch with something gleaming in its talons. "Sarah?"  
"Look out!" Sarah cried. But it was too late.

The next thing Eric knew, his body had reared up and tense in pain, the last few inches of Top Dollar's blade gleaming wetly from the side of his chest. He could feel the air expel soundlessly out from his deflating lung, managing a few lowly gasps of pain and surprise as the blade rotated and withdrew from Eric's body, leaving him falling limply against the roof. He just managed to lean against it, withdrawing from himself as Top Dollar crouched down to his level.  
He began to speak to Eric, as if the whole fight had never even happened. "You know, my daddy used to say, 'Every man's got a devil, and you can't rest until you find him.' See, what happened back there with you and your girlfriend – I cleared that building. Hell, nothing happens in this town without my say-so."

Eric let those words digest, his gaze flickering up to Top Dollar's grizzled face, long hair mopped flat against his head. Now he knew why he'd felt like this man would be important – he was the man responsible for sending the gang after him and Shelly. Yet he hadn't been there himself.

If it weren't for him, Shelly would still be alive.

Sarah and her mom would be all right.

All the people who'd died in the Devil's Night infernos would still be around.

And Eric wouldn't be sitting here right now, dying for the second time in a year.

Eric could feel some of the iron rise back into his bones with this realization, the crow watching him from above as Top Dollar continued.  
"I'm sorry if I spoiled your wedding plans there, friend. But if it's any consolation to you, you have put a smile on my face. You've got a lot of spirit, son."  
Eric saw Top Dollar reach down to pull a wicked-looking knife out from one soaked leather boot, even as the gears in his head began to turn, remembering the words his crow had spoken in his mind. What had he been here for?

Revenge.  
Justice.  
And…redemption.

"And I'm gonna miss you", Top Dollar finished with a tone of commendation, flashing the knife in front of Eric's face.  
Suddenly, Eric understood. He knew what redemption entailed, and he knew that he needed to find it. And what was it he needed to do?  
Something simple to say, but hard to do and lethal to the recipient caught in the emotional crossfire – let the pain go.  
The pain he still carried…it hadn't been his to begin with. It still wasn't his, even now.

 _Give it to him, kid. Deliver the final vengeful swing of Death's scythe._

"I have something to give you", Eric requested, some of the frightful gruff he'd had earlier returning to his voice. "I don't want it anymore."  
As swiftly as he could muster, Eric slapped a hand to Top Dollar's face, feeling the painful memories flash through his brain one last time before they traveled into Top's mind.

 **A lone tear flowing down from one of Shelly's swollen eyes, a breath mask over her nose and mouth, hooked up to an IV and heart monitor as doctors and nurses rushed over her. The room dark and cold with the palpable feeling of potential death.**

"Thirty hours of pain!" Eric let the cry loose, a groan of barely painful relief escaping his throat. Top Dollar recoiled beneath his grasp, the knife dropping away.

 **AED paddles sending electric currents into Shelly's covered body, surgeons rushing in with their kits and checking with other doctors on her condition. The eminent curtain of death coming nearer, the paid civil servants working diligently to keep it from doing so.**

"All at once!" Eric saw as much as felt blood escape in a scarlet spurt from Top Dollar's mouth, his body beginning to fry from the inside out.

 **The heart monitor pathetically flatlining, Shelly's outstretched arm slowly descending back beside her prone form on the hospital gurney, a small gasp of his name escaping her lips and into the oxygen mask.**

"And all for you!" Eric let out the growling last words, slowly moving Top Dollar's form, all but inert, away from him and off of the roof. He saw his body, his face ravaged in an eternal yawn of painful fear, fall to a lower section of roof, the fog brought by the storm swallowing him up.

Suddenly a flash of lightning fired across the sky, augmented by a baleful cry from the crow and a shot of thunder, and Eric saw the grotesque sight below: Top Dollar's body impaled upon a marble gargoyle, one of its horns sticking up from his mouth, blood mixing with the flooding water that poured from the stone beast's yawning mouth. Eric let out an involuntary shudder at the sight of the night's last deserved death before he turned back tow where he saw Sarah.

She was still hanging on for dear life, managing only to heave herself up a bit more onto the roof, the metal clanging against her body. Eric heaved himself over to the expanding gap in the roof and pulled Sarah up onto a stable section of the roof, holding her tight in a brotherly embrace. They stayed bound like that for a few long moments, the rain cascading down on them in the aftermath of battle.

* * *

Slowly, their feet slipping and dragging against the slippery roof, they managed to work their way back into the bell tower and down the stairs, supporting each other in a staggering gait. Once they reached the last set of stairs, they managed to properly see Albrecht, a light smile on his resting face, propped against the entryway to the tower.

"Go help him", Eric requested. Sarah gave him a look of reassurance before nodding and moving over to Albrecht, crouching next to him.  
"Are you alive?" she asked, relief coming to her face when she saw him nod and his eyes flash open. Sarah turned to see Eric slowly sit down across from them, gasping lightly in the pain that was still lingering from his barely-healed wounds. He'd be going soon, his earlier feelings of woeful inadequacy from earlier replaced with something fuller. As to what, he didn't know.  
"God, I need a cigarette", Albrecht groaned, reaching into his inside coat pocket to grab his lighter and what was left of a pack. "Everybody else dead?"  
Eric merely nodded, and Albrecht noticed that the makeup of Irony had washed away from his face, leaving it bare. His eyes, however, seemed to shine again. "You helped me", Eric stated, lightly tapping his own head with a finger. "What you kept in here saved me. Thank you."  
"Don't mention it", Albrecht responded with a light smile, Eric taking the cigarette and lighter. "I've been meaning to come to church anyway."  
A light smile managed to come to Eric's face as he took a light puff of the cigarette before lifting it to Albrecht's mouth. But Albrecht, it seemed, had lost the taste for them. "Gah, yuck!" he exclaimed, spitting the cigarette away before turning back to Eric and Sarah. "I'm quitting as of now. If I live", he added, chuckling lightly. Eric couldn't help but join in with him, and even Sarah managed to lighten up a bit.

There they were, like three beaten warriors freshly returned from a mission into the very depths of their own hells, but smelling like roses – Eric battered and bloodied but with his head held high, Sarah looking over at him with a smile, Albrecht filling up with pride over what he'd helped them accomplish. The emotion seemed to fill them all up to the point where it took over the room as well, and it wasn't about to leave anytime soon.

Not even the sound of distant sirens outside could diminish the feeling, but Eric slowly rose to his feet and cocked his head as if listening to something that only he could hear beyond the faraway klaxons of police cars. He took one moment to look back at Sarah, speaking what he knew were his last words to her.  
"Stay with him until help comes."  
Sarah looked over at Albrecht. "He'll be ok, right?" she asked, checking Albrecht to make sure for herself before looking back to where Eric was.

All she saw was the empty archway of the bell tower entrance and the cathedral beyond. "Eric?"  
Noticing Sarah's expression, Albrecht let out a soft chuckle before stating, "He does that a lot."  
Sarah shook her head with a soft laugh of her own, standing to her feet and staying next to Albrecht until a group of medics came in to check for survivors, a few police officers tailing them for protection. At the sight of Albrecht, they quickly moved to grab a stretcher they'd carted in with them and gingerly lifted Albrecht onto it.  
Sarah, however, wasn't done watching him yet. She'd lost Eric and Shelly, and her mom was only beginning to come back around. She wasn't going to lose anyone else, so she stayed with Albrecht still, keeping a close eye on him as they departed from the cathedral, the glaring reds and blues of police car lights flashing to greet them. Cops seemed to swarm around their vehicles, looking around at the area to see what may be amiss.

"Well, at least it stopped raining", Albrecht commented.  
With a shrug, Sarah simply stated, "It can't rain all the time."  
"No!"

They both looked up to see a familiar ratty face with short hair looking down at them both. "I don't believe it! This nightmare your fault, Albrecht?" Torres asked with indignation, barely failing at keeping a self-satisfied note out of his voice.  
Albrecht turned to look at Sarah. "You go on home. I'll be alright", he reassured her. Sarah gave him a gentle nod and began to walk away, her feet taking her in the direction of her home.  
"You want to tell me what's going on?" Torres demanded of Albrecht. Not even caring to leave his own smug tone from his voice, Albrecht answered in a manner of authority, "Your vigilante's up on the roof." He let himself take in Torres' surprised look before grabbing him lightly by the lapels and pulling him closer. "You missed it. Again."  
At last, Torres' face returned to its neutral, yet constantly pissed-off expression. "Get him out of here." Albrecht managed to let out a small chuckle of satisfaction as the ambulance workers loaded him into the back of the vehicle. Dead or not, he'd done his duty the best he could. He was still a cop, in every sense of the word.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sarah had just gotten to the street, ready for the long trek home, when she heard the flapping of wings overhead.  
Tilting her head up to the sky, she barely managed to make out the form of the crow flying overhead in the direction of the graveyard, carrying something gleaming in its beak. Not quite knowing why, Sarah decided to follow it.  
It had guided Eric, Sarah knew. Now she let it guide her.


	12. Epilogue: Death and Passover

Epilogue: Death and Passover

If Sarah had only gotten to the cemetery a few moments earlier, she would have seen something that could have come straight from a gothic take on Heaven above.

Just as the ambulance workers gathered up Albrecht, Eric had stumbled out of the church through a side door that led into the cemetery, each step he took growing steadily weaker as he approached his and his love's gravestones. "Shelly…" he whispered before he weakly collapsed, feeling the cold ground beneath his side through his shirt as he reached out to Shelly's cold marker, using it to pull himself close enough to rest against it. He caught his breath, feeling darkness beginning to creep around his body and into his line of sight.  
As the wind started to grow and whip around him, Eric could sense the cold fingers of death reaching out for him again, blood beginning to seep from his wounds in fresh torrents. Darkness edged around his vision, the other graves beginning to blur. This was it. Nothing could stop it now.

Then, something else gently shook him out of his pre-death trance: a warm hand brushing its fingers through his steaming wet locks. Prying open his eyes, Eric slowly turned to look up and see the owner of the warm appendage. And what he saw filled him with light, his jaw hanging open in a gasp as he beheld his deliverer.

She seemed just as beautiful to him as she did the first time he saw her, her gaze soft and gentle, her perfect figure clad in an angelic white dress. Slowly, gently, Shelly Webster knelt down on the ground between Eric's legs, tilting her head toward his.  
Their lips met, and Eric could see the dark edges around his vision be slowly replaced by the light that enveloped his body, light that seemed to be taken from the growing exultation of an early morning sunrise. His arms shakily went up to her waist, almost afraid to hold her for fear of this being a dream.  
But Shelly's figure proved solid to him, and as the kiss slowly ended, Eric felt her bare arms wrap around his fabric-covered shoulders, her hair in his face as he held her tight. "Shelly…am I coming home?"  
He could feel her nodding, her gentle voice against his ear. "You're coming home. It's over, baby."  
His hands balled into the fabric of her dress, his head burying into her smooth shoulder, tears beginning to flood from his eyes.

"Eric…it's alright. It's over. I'm here."

Eric couldn't help but let out a sad smile at her words. He finally let himself realize that the crow was right – he couldn't save her back then, he'd come to terms with that now.

But he had saved Sarah. He had saved any more people from suffering the same fate her mother or Shelly had done. He had taken his vengeance, discovering that under the skin, it was only love's darker brother. And here, with that vengeance had indeed come justice, as the reason for his being brought back was finally gone.

And redemption for himself. He may not have been able to save her, but she had come back to help save him.

Eric wasn't ready to leave yet, though. He managed to lean away just enough to look up into Shelly's loving amber gaze, his voice a whisper. "Remember when I told you that I loved you that last time?"  
Shelly nodded, a smile starting to spread across her face as well. "And I asked you 'forever'?"  
The same smile, happier this time, seemed to spread across Eric's face under the almost-completely faded mask of makeup. "And I said 'forever', then you asked 'Only forever?'"  
He leaned up, feeling every invisible weight beginning to leave his shoulders as they departed; his final words a whisper in his angel's ear, reflected through her voice as it murmured into his own.  
"It's forever now."

* * *

Sarah finally managed to make it into the cemetery, keeping a close eye on her darkly feathered friend as it landed on top of Eric's gravestone. As she got closer to the twin markers, she found both graves as if they'd never been touched in the first place. Yet she didn't let herself feel surprised – with all the strange happenings these last couple of nights, she didn't think anything would continue to faze her for a long time.  
Slowly, Sarah opened up her hand to hold it beneath the crow's beak before the bird dropped the engagement ring, its tiny diamond and gold finish gleaming, into her palm. She held it up and looked at the inside of the ring, noting the simple inscription of FOREVER with a soft smile.

Her gaze flickered to the murderous, yet gentle, bird. "Thanks", she whispered with a smile before slowly turning away and walking back to the street, her respects more than paid.

She heard a fluttering behind her as the bird disappeared into the darkness of the night, so new to her eyes after so many years. How delightfully ironic it was that, on this newly darkened Devil's Night, she finally found it in herself to believe in angels.

 _If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn. People die.  
But real love is forever._


End file.
